Women's athletics advocacy groups began April 15 a grass-roots effort to convince the Department of Education to withdraw the latest Title IX clarification that allows institutions to use a survey to determine women's interests in sports.

The National Association for Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) sent an electronic message asking members to write to their Congressional representatives to indicate their opposition to the new clarification. The message included a sample letter and the observation that "creativity is encouraged" (such as having a women's basketball team sign a basketball and deliver it to their Congressman with a request to "restore Title IX").

Many advocates of Title IX protested the portion of the clarification that allows institutions to use a survey distributed via e-mail to gauge women's interests in athletics.

Proponents of the clarification, however, praised the OCR for providing institutions with a simple, easy and effective way to comply with the law that bans gender discrimination in higher education.

The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued the clarification March 18, changing the application of the third prong of a three-part test used to assess whether institutions are complying with Title IX. The test for compliance includes the following options:

* Male-female athletics participation that is substantially proportional to the institution's undergraduate enrollment.

* A continuing history of expansion of athletics programs for the under-represented gender.

* Accommodating the interests and abilities of the under-represented gender.

The clarification will elevate the third prong of the test by providing a standardized measure of interest. That change could reduce pressure on institutions that traditionally have relied on creating participation levels proportionate to undergraduate enrollment.

NACWAA's sample letter touts advances in women's athletics due to Title IX and specifically takes issue with the clarification's assertion that an unreturned survey can be counted as a lack of interest.

"A survey alone cannot accurately determine student interest and ability," the letter reads. "As someone who has seen first-hand the benefit of sports, I object to this change and any attempt to undermine this vital law."

NACWAA Executive Director Jennifer Alley said that other groups, including the Women's Sports Foundation, were sending similar messages to their memberships. Representatives of the Women's Sports Foundation were unavailable for comment.

Alley said she hopes the letter-writing campaign will be effective, though planning for other efforts, such as having women's sports teams visit the local offices of legislators, are in the works.

Alley said the clarification jeopardized the future of Title IX, calling it a "back-door attempt to just stop compliance altogether."

"We're hoping the senators and representatives will hear from their constituencies, that they will contact Secretary (Margaret) Spellings and tell her to withdraw this," Alley said.

Jocelyn Samuels, vice-president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center, said that encouraging Congress to register its disapproval of the clarification could be effective again, as it was in 2003 when the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics made a recommendation similar to the recent clarification. That recommendation was not adopted by then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige.

"Congressional disapproval of changes to the policies was one of the significant things that did, I think, help to convince the Department of Education that it would be unwise as a matter of policy and politics to modify the policy back in 2003," Samuels said. "Grass-roots mobilization also was extremely important, both through Congress and directly through e-mails and letters both to Secretary Paige and to the White House. The amount of media attention, the extent to which there were all kinds of public indications of support for the current Tile IX policies, I think together had a huge impact on the way the commission recommendations were rejected by (Paige)."

Though the public impact during the commission's hearings was substantial, Samuels called this effort a "different ballgame" since the Department of Education did not solicit public feedback before making the clarification.

"To undo it might be a challenging enterprise, but I'm certainly hoping that the department will hear the significant outrage that has been generated by it and what I think will be a significant Congressional response to it and will, on its own, decide to rescind the policy," she said.

If the grass-roots campaign is for some reason not effective, Samuels said, the National Women's Law Center could pursue "other strategies."