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The regulations are not due to go into effect for colleges or universities until July 21, and with the deadline drawing near, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano has asked his aides to review the whole matter again. The net result: HEW so far has not denied a penny of federal funds to any high school or college for discriminating against women in athletics, and Hester Lewis, a Title IX attorney in HEW's Office of Civil Rights, admits: "I would say that practically no college or university will be in compliance [with Title IX] by July 21."
Even so, the inevitability of Title IX has forced schools to upgrade their programs for girls, and fast. Says Margot Polivy, the attorney for the A.I.A.W.: "In 1972, before Title IX, women's intercollegiate sports had 1% of the budget of the men's. I would judge today that women's programs—the best of them—are running between 15% and 18% of the men's programs on money. And on the average, women's programs are running about 10%. Colleges are just now starting to feel the impact of what's been happening on the elementary and secondary level. I would expect that participation rate to rise."
At the elementary and secondary level, HEW has had some limited success. The regulations for high schools went into effect in July 1976; so far a score of programs have been altered as the result of the Government's intercession. One example: Oak Ridge, Tenn., where the school district was threatened with the loss of $750,000 in federal funds unless the girls' athletic program was upgraded. On their own, however, thousands of schools have improved their programs.
On the intercollegiate level, HEW has preferred to encourage rather than intervene. Prodded by three formal complaints by women students and their parents, the University of Michigan, which perennially runs one of the most successful men's athletic programs in the nation, has made considerable progress toward equality. In 1973 the school had only informal competition for women; now, just five years later, it has ten varsity teams, to the men's eleven. Next year Michigan will award the equivalent of 30 scholarships at a cost of $100,000, compared with the 190 at over $700,000 that will go to the men. One hotly debated issue: Should the women athletes be allowed to win the famous block M varsity letter so revered by the men? Football Coach Bo Schembechler and Basketball Coach Johnny Orr protested vigorously that they should not, but the women got the Michigan M.
Women may have won that symbolic flight at Michigan; however at all too many schools they are still slighted, still second-class citizens. At the urging of HEW, for instance, the University of Georgia has started to make amends for a program that spent about $1,000 on women's athletics in 1973. The figure is now up to $120,000 (vs. the men's $2.5 million), but the indignities remain. Item: male golfers receive an unlimited supply of balls, while the women are given one per competitive round. Says Liz Murphey: "Sometimes the guys give the girls some just to be nice. Things are looking better, but it's very slow."