Title IX: A Long Process

After reading “Booster Club Can’t Pay Football Athletes’ User Fees” in the Title IX blog, I immediately thought of one of our readings from class, “Title IX Media Helper.” The blog post is about a booster club called “The Touchdown Club” in Massachusetts that wanted to use its fundraising proceeds to help minimize the fees for playing on the football team. School and city officials in Haverhill denied the club’s request stating that it violated Title IX because it did not benefit boys’ and girls’ sports equally.

Over the last few weeks we have been reading a lot about Title IX and its successes and failures. (Mainly failures) However, this story shows that Title IX has definitely had some success in helping to make sport an equal opportunity for boys and girls. In our reading it lists a variety of questions and answers about Title IX, one of these questions being about booster clubs. It states that “if the school permits an individual or group to donate funds for the benefit of a specific gender or sport, it must also make sure that benefits and services are equivalent for both sexes.” (Women and Sport in the United States 329) The Haverhill school district definitely read this because they took a step towards equality in sport by denying the club’s request.

In the blog, the writer talks about a possible solution for where this money should end up. They say how it should go to the low income student athletes, no matter the race, sex, or sport. This seems like a very good idea because it helps the students who really do need the money, while not discriminating against sex.

After reading multiple articles about Title IX for class, I was coming to the conclusion that it has not been working. However, after seeing this story it appears that Title IX is working (rather slowly) and should hopefully lead to full equality for men and women’s athletics in the future.