The 3 Prong Test: Difficult to Understand

Immediately after reading “Liberty Explains” in the Title IX blog, I thought about multiple things from our readings and class discussions. The blog is about how Liberty University knows they are currently in compliance with prong two of Title IX, but they believe in three to five years they will no longer be in compliance. This is because the rules of the three prong test are not very clear.

In class we discussed Title IX very thoroughly. One of the main parts of Title IX is the three prong test that helps to show if a school is in compliance with the educational amendment. The three prongs are male/female athletes are proportional to the male/female undergrad population, a history of progress which shows expanding opportunities, and accommodation of interests (students’ needs are fully met). (Sarah’s Lecture Notes) Liberty is in compliance with prong two because they have added three women’s sports since 2009, as well as recently cutting their men’s wrestling program.

I agree completely with Liberty’s statement that prong two is subjective and not described well enough. Title IX is an extremely important amendment for education and sport, and the fact that the stipulations of the three prong test are not clearly defined causes many problems for schools. As the blog said, schools do not know how many or how frequently new opportunities need to be added. This needs to change very soon. I am not very clear on the process of changing amendments, but it seems obvious that the guidelines for the three prong test need to be easier to understand and more in depth. Schools like Liberty who are trying to comply with Title IX need to know exactly what they should do, and non-compliant schools do not need an excuse (saying the rules are unclear).

Although Liberty said they are worried about staying in compliance for the next few years, I believe they do not have anything to worry about. If they continue to add women’s sports, they will be able to not only stay in compliance with prong two, but also prong one (proportionality). Prong one only requires the ratios to be close, although equality is the ultimate goal. (Women and Sports in the United States 332) Therefore, Liberty should still strive to add more women’s sports, and if they do so they will continue to be in compliance for years to come.