Implementation of Title IX

Perspective of Pennsylvania Sports Leader

Abstract

Title IX of the Higher Education Act is to provide women with legal protection against discrimination in educational programs and activities, including intercollegiate athletics. The purpose of this research is to examine the attitudes and perceptions of male and female sport leaders toward Title IX and the specific democratic value, equality, which underlays it. This article reports the findings of an attitudinal survey of sport leaders in selected public institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania. The survey addressed the sport Ieaders' attitudes toward political and social equality and the enforcement issue of Title IX. The thesis of this report is that so long as there is a gap between persons' support for democralic values and the abstract and their actual behavior, enforcement of Title IX will remain controversial and equality between the sexes will not be achieved.