David Tell, columnist
The Weekly Standard

"(A) college runs afoul of Title IX any time it fails to distribute athletics opportunities to men and women in proportions closely mirroring the undergraduate population at large. That the school may be having difficulty finding enough students to play on the women's teams it already sponsors is no excuse. 'Society has conditioned women to expect less than their fair share,' according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a problem the Ninth Circuit 'presumes' can best be remedied by offering women more than they want.

"And what if they just won't take it? What if, on the questionnaire appended to each year's college-entrance SAT, men's expressed interest in varsity athletics continues to be three times higher than women's? In that case, advises the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it would be 'extremely prudent' for university administrators to comply with Title IX the horrible but easy way: by canceling one or more of their traditional -- and fully subscribed -- varsity programs for men.

"Which is exactly what they've been doing; it's been a bloodbath these past few years. ... Most Division I schools already offer a wider range of sports to women than to men. Women's teams already outnumber men's in the vast majority of NCAA-sanctioned sports -- and absorb a notably outsized share of available scholarship money. We're already at the point where, adjusted for population growth, significantly fewer men now play American college sports than at any time in the past 20 years, simply because they're not being allowed to. And still there are 'too many' active jockstraps nationwide, largely because 'too many' schools refuse to let go of their 100-man football rosters. So the carnage will likely continue."

Athletics spending

Glen Mason, head football coach
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Associated Press

"The problem is football, and the solution is football. Football should be making more money, any way you look at it. And if you want a big, comprehensive (athletics) program, you need a successful football program."