It is difficult to outright dislike someone who recognizes that baseball is the greatest sport going. Nevertheless, the train wreck of misinformation in George Will's column denouncing Title IX in the May 27, 2002, issue of Newsweek magazine ("A Train Wreck Called Title IX") was way out in right field. Will condemns "Title IX fanatics" by citing the fringe of anti-Title IX fanatics.

As a former Department of Education staffer besotted by the facts, I will simply point out some of the more egregious errors. Proportionality (providing intercollegiate athletics participation opportunities proportionate to enrollment) is not required by Title IX -- it is one of three ways to comply, and an institution may choose which one of the three methods it will meet. Contrary to the assertion that Title IX considers it illegal, the government's three-part test incorporates the very premise that men and women may indeed have different interests and abilities regarding sports.

Colleges have discontinued men's and women's teams not because of Title IX but because of finances -- just ask the female students who participated on the 100 women's gymnastics teams that were cut between 1981 and 1999 (see the March 2001 study by the General Accounting Office). Institutions do not have to create demands for women's sports. Under Title IX, an institution does not even have to consider adding a women's team until three conditions are met: sufficient interest to form a team; sufficient ability for a viable team; and sufficient intercollegiate (not club or intramural) competition for that team in the geographic area where the institution normally competes. What this means is, there may be 1,000 women on a campus who want a women's intercollegiate lacrosse team, but the institution does not even have to think about adding women's lacrosse to comply with Title IX if there is insufficient intercollegiate competition for that team.

Will's column states that no athletics regulations were written in the 1970s at the time of the most significant growth in girls' high-school athletics. In fact, the debate over the 1972 Title IX statute confirmed coverage of athletics programs. The draft Title IX regulation -- published for public comment in 1974 -- and the final Title IX regulation adopted in 1975 contained provisions for athletics programs, and full compliance was required by 1978. Those provisions, though general, made it clear enough to education officials from the early 1970s that failure to provide girls' athletics opportunities would be a problem. And of course, the 1970s was the time of the most rapid growth -- when you start with nothing, any growth is huge. Any woman wanting to participate in athletics in the 1970s knows that Title IX provided the jump-start.

As for the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Grove City College v. Bell (February 28, 1984) rendered Title IX inapplicable to many education programs, not just athletics. It took four years (not most of the 1980s per Will's column) for Congress to pass the Civil Rights Restoration Act because of opposition by the Reagan Administration. This opposition persisted despite action within weeks of the Grove City decision by some members of Congress who introduced bills to "overturn" the Supreme Court's decision. Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 by two-thirds majority over President Reagan's veto on March 22, 1988.

In the Brown University case, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit stated (in 1996): "The premise that women are less interested in sports than men ignores the fact that Title IX was enacted in order to remedy discrimination that results from stereotyped notions of women's interest and abilities. Interest and ability rarely develop in a vacuum; they evolve as a function of opportunity and experience." Title IX does not hold institutions responsible for society's ills. Rather, it requires institution officials to be aggressive about ensuring that their actions have not limited participation on the basis of sex at their institutions.

In 1972, women received fewer than 10 percent of the degrees in medicine and law and about 14 percent of the doctoral degrees. Today, women are receiving close to half of the medical, law and doctoral degrees. It is doubtful that such progress would have occurred in one generation without Title IX. Title IX has opened the door to the opportunity to explore. No one should be alarmed because women have blasted that door off its hinges.

Valerie M. Bonnette is president of Good Sports, Inc., Title IX and Gender Equity Specialists.