<p>^^ In our HS
there are girls teams for </p>
<p>volleyball,
softball,
cc/track,
swiming
diving
tennis
golf
basketball
rowing</p>
<p>I know I am forgetting some–
point being at our hs, the cheerleaders are a very small # of participants, compared to the girls who are in sports.</p>
<p>Bring on the male cheerleading squad and the male dance team! :)</p>
<p>Our school was being investigated for Title IX violations because since football is a no cut sport there are hundreds of guys involved, vs. about 30 girls who make the volleyball teams. The school added water polo! I don’t know a soul who plays water polo. I actually think that the decision was made because the pool doesn’t get alot of use, whereas the gyms and fields are always busy. </p>
<p>Wish they’d added competitive cheer instead.</p>
<p>^^^ In the interest of moving toward gender equity, some “emerging” women’s sports such as bowling, archery, and rifle are being pursued by colleges whose athletic opportunities and funding are out of proportion with their gender mix. The appeal of such sports is that they can be added cheaply to balance the number of men’s and women’s sports. You don’t even need to travel - women’s archery teams can shoot on their own campus and send scores back and forth electronically. Of course, the demand for such sports is very low. Meanwhile, girls are coming in droves to summer competitive cheerleading camps.</p>
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<p>Gymnastics at the elite levels continues through the summer–USAG (the governing body for artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and sports acro/tumbling) holds Nationals in August. That’s when the national teams are selected.</p>
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<p>This is a HUGE judgement call that as a mother of a collegiate cheerleader, I find offensive. What makes you think ALL gymnasts’ tumbling is superior to cheerleaders’? Clearly you’ve never seen southern cheerleading. My daughter has competed since first grade and has done school cheerleading since seventh. Those on her competitive squad, as well as many on her school squad, have gorgeous layouts, fulls, punch fronts, etc. Are there a couple that still need to work on their form? Perhaps, but I challenge you to prove each and every gymnast’s form is superior. </p>
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<p>Again, another comment that is a ridiculous stereotype. My daughter graduated from a very rigorous and ranked private prep toward the top of her class. She had a 4.0 UW, 2250 SAT I, 790/770/720 SAT II, 12 APs (11 fives; 1 four), TONS of other leadership roles in addition to capt. of her varsity squad, voted “Most Likely to Succeed”, etc. She is passionate about this SPORT that she enjoys so much. Lessons gave been costly for the past 13 years and she realizes how fortunate she’s been to have parents who have been able to finance this high $ activity; hence, she started a charity whereby she and others teach cheerleading to underprivileged youth for free. There is a confidence and joy that she’s received from this sport, and she feels moved to share this with those less fortunate. She’s not an anomaly. Cheerleaders are not “airheads” on the contrary. The cheerleaders I’ve met are dedicated ATHLETES who train for hours daily and focused scholars who care about their studies.</p>
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<p>This would likely be a violation of the law as well. But it’s looks like they’re trying so no big deal! Right? not quite…</p>
<p>The Title IX statute says no quotas. But that is what is used in regulation. As a group, men are more interested in sports than women so higher ed has a hard time filling the quotas without cutting men’s teams. Feminists are just fine with that. So we have to have everything from women’s bowling to women’s curling to make the numbers while, at the same time, men’s wrestling is cut and more men compete for fewer sports offerings.</p>
<p>Cheerleading just happens to be the largest women’s participation sport in the United States. Having cheer teams would help equalize the numbers. As far as the feminists on campus are concerned, cheer is the enemy. It is an organized sport just as much as ice skating or gymnastics, but it is relatively new and a lot of adults think of girls in short skirts shaking their pom-poms. They know nothing about coordinated dance routines, single base lifts, back-flips, and complex tumbling runs. </p>
<p>Big question is what the briefs looked like and how old the judge was.</p>
<p>I don’t really care one way or the other and clearly the case was settled with regard to current guidelines…but I cannot help ask why “competitive cheer” and whatever happened to gymnastics for leaping, tumbling, jumping and flying through the air? Cheerleading is cheerleading and it exists to “cheer” on other teams, that alone makes it not a sport in and of itself. I’m not anti-cheer but just don’t believe that it meets the criteria of sport. I also don’t think “ice dancing” and marching band are “sports” and those activities have competitions. Competition does not equal “sport.” Our school dropped gymnastics years ago to add volleyball or something else, but I cannot imagine turning the cheerleaders into a sport instead of reintroducing gymnastics or field hockey or some other established sport.</p>
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<p>Fourier…You hit the nail on the head. Did you happen to watch the Penn & Teller special on cheerleading and the move to have it declared a sport under Title IX? It was indeed an eye opener.</p>
<p>For anyone who doesn’t think COMPETITIVE cheerleading should be declared a sport under Title IX, I would like you to take a very brief moment to watch the following (co-ed) and after watching it tell me you don’t think this is one of THE MOST ATHLETIC SPORTS around:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - 2010 Cheerleading World Championships 10 - Top Gun All Stars](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_--yrAjWyA]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_--yrAjWyA)</p>
<p>I think some people are too hung up on defining what constitutes a “sport.” A sport is generally any competition with rules that requires physical effort (like table tennis).</p>
<p>The real issue is providing girls/women with the competitive physical activity that they want in college (and in high school). Why force them into waterpolo, riflery, archery, and other sports invented by men, in order to meet Title IX requirements? Give them what they want - cheer, dance, gymnastics (and all of the other traditional sports), if that is what will enrich their lives.</p>
<p>Btw, women’s sports and Title IX is not the reason men’s sports are cut. Each college (and high school) makes its own decision about how much money it wants to spend on athletics. If they don’t want to cut mens wrestling, they don’t have to. They just need to make equal opportunities available to females.</p>
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<p>The problem is legally they are supposed to introduce sports that have interested participants. If that area has no interest in rugby, then it makes no sense to add it. But schools will use that to say “hey we have these opportunities, but nobody is taking them!”</p>
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<p>Just because it is extremely athletic (no argument from me) doesn’t make it a sport. But that’s just words really. I see no reason it shouldn’t be allowed under Title IX.</p>
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<p>It absolutely is. Even though Title IX is not intended to see sports being cut, it’s pretty simple budgeting. When the athletic department is given $XXX budget and not a dime more, they have to make some hard choices sometimes. Unfortunately, men’s teams are often the ones who get the axe. </p>
<p>The question I’m still waiting to have answered is why athletics and music activities don’t cancel each other out? My experience has been that many more females participate in things like music, choir, drama, etc. Those are all a part of Title IX as well, but I’ve never heard a case of those programs getting dropped or additional programs being added because of inequality…</p>
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<p>Only if you analyze it from the point of when women were discriminated against.</p>
<p>In the olden days, when high schools got $X dollars for athletics, they could spend it all on football, mens basketball, mens baseball and mens wrestling. Women might get nothing.</p>
<p>Today, when colleges and high schools get $X dollars to spend, they can spend it any way they like, so long as both men and women are provided equal opportunities to participate.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t make any sense…</p>
<p>Let’s say you have X to spend, with Y spent on men’s sports and Z on women’s sports. X = Y + Z. If Z = 0, then Y = X. If Z > 0, Y < X. Less money for men’s sports –> fewer men’s sports.</p>
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<p>Did you have to analyze it with algebra? Math is not my thing! lol</p>
<p>Anyway, YES, if pre-Title IX, ALL money was spent on men, and there is no increase in funding, then of course men’s sports will get less money when half of it must now be spent on women.</p>
<p>But that is the reason Title IX came about - to eliminate DISCRIMINATION in providing opportunities to women. Colleges and high schools are free to increase athletic funding to a level that retains ALL previously offered sports for men, while also providing equal opportunities for women. It is their CHOICE to cut men’s sports in order to maintain a certain funding level and provide equal opportunities for women - which should have been provided all along.</p>
<p>IMO, any activity where the winner is determined based entirely on the personal opinions of non-participants is not a true sport.</p>
<p>So, while figure skaters, divers, gymnasts, synchronized swimmers, dancers, etc, may in fact be incredible athletes, what they do is not “sports”, at best they are “competitions”.</p>
<p>I agree 100%!!! Sports should be about THAT you do something (THAT you put the ball over the goal line, THAT you high jumped X feet, etc.), not HOW you do something (so beware “style points” “degrees of difficulty,” “costumes,” music accompanying performance, etc. This is why I hate the 3-point shot in basketball…it rewards HOW you got the ball thru the hoop (from a certain distance), not THAT you got it thru the hoop. Also, all of the various strokes in competitive swimming are a joke…it should be THAT you got from one end of the pool to the other in x amount of time, not HOW you swam.</p>
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<p>Here’s my biggest problem with the law…</p>
<p>Say I go out and win the lottery. Bring in just for kicks $10 million. I decided to donate $6million to my local high school. I played baseball and football. I want them to have the money that I am donating using it for field upgrades, uniforms, etc. </p>
<p>My problem is they can’t touch a dime of that money until somebody steps up and offers the same for girls athletics.</p>
<p>Or another…</p>
<p>I’m a parent of a baseball player. I get a group of us together and we’re going to fundraise to purchase a new scoreboard for the baseball field. We get the $15k (no idea) for the new scoreboard. Meanwhile the softball parents don’t feel like doing anything. Their scoreboard is old and could used to be replaced. But they don’t feel like going out and working for the money. We can’t purchase the new scoreboard with donated money. We worked for it. But we can’t spend it until the school finds the money for the softball team (or other female sport).</p>
<p>Makes sense how exactly?</p>
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<p>Why would “that you do something” be the only basis for making an athletic endeavor a sport? I can shoot a basket–I did something. Does that put me in the same category as Paul Pierce or Kevin Garnett? There’s more to basketball than putting the ball through a hope. There’s a level of artistry that IMO is akin to what gymnasts and figure skaters do. The sports where an athlete scores points (I guess that’s what you mean by doing something) also involve judgment calls. Refs make subjective decisions all the time in basketball, baseball, and football. To me, it’s the level of athleticism (among other criteria) involved that makes an activity a sport and I’d put competitive cheerleading in that category.</p>
<p>Just have to put in my two cents about ice dancing. I can understand how the fact that it has a dance base, requires costumes, and is judged could raise questions as to the appropriateness of calling it a sport. However, the judging scandal at the Salt Lake City Olympics really pushed figure skating’s international governing body to implement changes that would make judging the sport less subjective. </p>
<p>I agree with the poster who said that sport is not only about THAT an athlete does something but about HOW an athlete does something as well. Because my daughter is an internationally competitive ice dancer, I am well aware of the athletic effort that goes into the HOW as well as the THAT of what she does. An average of four hours of on-ice practice a day, six days a week. Three to four hours of ballet a week. Three to four hours of strength and cardiovascular conditioning a week. Additional work in acrobatics or other dance forms as needed. And so on. She is certainly an athlete, and in my mind participates in a sport, but it all depends on your definition.</p>
<p>(As an aside, ice dancing would be a perfect Title IX sport, since it requires exactly the same number of men and women!)</p>
<p>Left out of the discussion about Title IX discrimination is the fact that the data show that as a group men are more interested in participating in sports than women, again as a group. This means that a law mandating equal participation quotas for men and women in college sports inherently discriminates against men with an interest in sports. Men face a much more competitive environment to get a place on the team, money, etc. This kind of discrimination is wrong no matter how pure one’s intent is.</p>
<p>The bottom line here is that the government should not be involved in telling private schools what kinds of athletic teams they should have. If there aren’t enough women’s sports at school X then presumably women will shun it and apply to school Y.</p>