College Athletics: Does Equality Mean

Doing Things the Way Men Do?

Presentation to the 1986 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Women
Deans and Counselors.

Good morning:

I usually do not begin presentations with expressions of my own anxiety or my own doubts
because it has been my experience that this expression becomes infectious and the doubts or anxiety
expressed soon get returned, in doubles, from the audience.

But in this case I feel it important not so much to express anxiety and doubt but to try to
explain why I might be speaking here on this occasion, especially to a group whose purpose is to
find ways for women who are working in a variety of functions in higher education to share
information with one another, to do what is now called "networking," and to improve capacities to
function as educational leaders.

In one sense the very existence of a national organization of women academic deans,
advisors and counselors suggests that, at least among the members, and certainly among the
founders, there is and was something special about the situation that women are in which warrants
the formation of an interest group or professional organization with the word "women" in its title.
This, in and of itself, is not remarkable except that what I have to say today will in some sense
assume something about what it means to identify as a woman, what it means to lead as a woman.
Although clearly, I am not speaking from personal experience, nor for that matter do I believe that
the remarks that I want to make have anything to do necessarily only with women, there may be a
hint of presumption in what I am doing.

For myself, I think I tend to subscribe to an idea of consciousness that allows for a large
continuum of ways of thinking and feeling, attitudes and attributions, on the basis of gender. Thus,
while one might be able to describe, ideotypically, a female or a male type of thinking or feeling, it is
my sense that those descriptions need not limit us to finding only those whose gender identification
would place them in that category, thinking or feeling that way.

Part of the reason why I feel somewhat anxious is that I want to avoid to some extent the
situation that women and many of us men often find ourselves in: that of having to listen to a very,
very long conversation, wondering where we can find ourselves in it. Thus, I will try to sketch out
some of the things that I want to say in as much detail as I think is at least tentatively required to
explain them and then to engage in a conversation with as many of you as wish so that we might
share experiences and examine some of the underlying ideas behind this presentation.

Let me also say, to begin, that I have relatively limited experience in the area of sports. My
interest in this subject however comes from interest in the larger problem of difference, and what

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that difference might imply and whether, as I say in the abstract, being equal means doing things the
way that men do.

Part of the issue about difference, as exemplified in the organization to which you belong, is
that there is something different about men and women, but we are not exactly sure in every case
what it is or, once knowing what it is, what it would imply. When we add the idea of equality to this
notion of difference, we can easily see how the tension shifts from, on the one hand describing
things which might appear different, naturally or culturally, to the other: which says that things have
to be equal implying that they have to move in some direction or be measured in such a way as to
find them equal. It is this tension that is the underlying issue to be discussed in this talk.

First, let me give the answer to the question: Does being equal mean doing things the way
men do? I will suggest that the answer is "No." But it is a hard job trying to do otherwise and
preserve equal opportunity unless we are very clear about our categories. For it seems that the
question of equality begs the question of a standard, equal to what? And, if we find an inequality, we
may be less inclined to examine the standard than we are to ask if the standard is being met. In cases
where the standard is dominated by something attributable, rightly or wrongly, to "maleness,"
measurements of inequality may run the risk of assuming the appropriateness of the standard both
for the men who have set it and the women who are to undergo or undertake a plan to achieve it.
Some may argue for two standards, one for women, one for men. These arguments may be based on
gender claims, some less verifiable than others. Even in this maneuver, the male or dominant
standard goes unexamined and the debate shifts to the appropriateness of male assumptions as they
relate to assigned gender differences. The effort of this talk will be to look at this problem of
standards and to suggest how the impulse to equalitynot the raw measurement of whether things
are, on any agreed upon or stipulated series of criteria, equalmay have the unintended and harmful
effect of leaving unchallenged the standard employed to define the inequality to begin with.

Let me begin by saying how I think that I will attack this problem.

To start, I will try to acknowledge some of the people who have contributed to my
experience and thinking. Second, I will talk about a couple of cases outside of sports in which a
similar set of questions about equality and difference emerge. Third, I will try to define the question
that I seek to analyze. Next, I will discuss some of the theoretical background for this conversation
that will entail talking about the work of some people who have been thinking a great deal more
than I have about difference. I will then also suggest what I think might be one of the problems that
we have when we move from something that is descriptive to something which seems prescriptive.
At that point, I will get to the issue of athletics and will sketch out an aspect of the history of
athletics, especially a history of two competing ideologies about athletics. I will argue that two of
these ideologies used to be in competition within "men's" sports and that one part of the ideology
came closer to the traditional ideology developed in this century for women's sports. I will then talk
about Title IX and its effects, some intended and some unintended, and then sketch out just how
change seems to have taken place in athletics and in which direction the change seems to be going.
Penultimately, I will look at a series of issues that have arisen in athletics and suggest where these
issues fall into the ideologies that I have identified. Lastly I will try to talk about what a possible
leadership role for women can be.

Warren Susman, the late Rutgers historian, has a very nice quote in the acknowledgement
section of his wonderful book, Culture as History. Before listing a number of people to whom he

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gives thanks he quotes from Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and says, "I owe a lot
to the kindness of strangers." Janet Emig, in The Web of Meaning, another wonderful book, tells us
that, at this late stage in the late twentieth century, particularly in humanistic studies, it is highly
unlikely that any of us will have an original idea. These two points, the anonymity of some of the
influences and the unlikelihood of originality, frame this discussion and offer some humility. I
should also say that the thrust of my remarks are my own thoughts, offered to stimulate a
discussion, not pretending to be in any way official, comprehensive, or representative of my
University or any other. They are intended, not for sports scholars who have studied these things in
much greater detail than I, but for administrators, people whose thinking and decision-making may
affect how resources are allocated or how policies are developed, and people who have the burden
of reconciling a variety of sometimes conflicting and competing programs with clear ideas of
mission and goals.

This analysis is the product of a variety of influences and is meant to raise questions and
suggest ways of thinking more than it is to prescribe a set of activities or to define historically what
has happened. I can, however. identify some of the people who have influenced my thinking but
who of course bear no responsibility for what I say if it is wrong. Two women I will acknowledge at
the onset; others will be mentioned in the course of the paper.

Caroline Babcock, a Barnard graduate in 1904, early member of the suffrage movement,
longtime executive secretary of the National Womens Party, and colleague of Harriet Stanton
Blatch, influenced my thinking in a very particular way by getting me to see that there was a whole
other way of looking at women and the situation they were in. While I met her only in the very
twilight of her long life, her thinking shaped my thinking dramatically. She made it clear that women,
because there were some differences, had especially important things to contribute politically. They
saw things a different way, and that difference was valuable for societyit formed a critique of
patriarchal society. Of course, along with many suffragists she combined her feminism with
pacifism. This is no necessary link, as we certainly can see., but for, her pacifism was an expression of
womens difference and womens concern, not womens weakness.

Alice Irby, as Vice President for Student Services at Rutgers and my supervisor named me
Title IX Officer at Rutgers University many years ago, provided an influence of a very different type.
She offered a model of clear thinking and analytical ability not unconnected to the sense of where
women are and where she thought they needed to be if they are to be equal. Her influence moved
from a sense of just difference and political equality to a much clearer idea of what to be "equally
functioning" would mean for women. While aware of what might be called a feminist critique of
society, she was also acutely aware of the power of patriarchal society and the likelihood of success a
critique alone might have.

These influences have suggested to me ways of thinking and acting. In some ways, they
define the tension that I see in a lot of conversations about contemporary feminism.

The immediate impetus for this frame for a discussion, when I submitted the abstract to
Margaret Bonz last Fall about athletics and whether being equal means necessarily doing things the
way men do, came from all places a case involving Sears, Roebuck and the EEOC. That case raises
a number of questions about problems in contemporary feminist thought. (For those who are
interested further, Karen Winkler has an article on this "controversy" in the February 6, 1986
Chronicle.)

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 You may remember that the EEOC has been pursuing Sears, Roebuck for some time on a
charge of sex discrimination for failing to take adequate steps to promote and advance the interests
of a certain part of its sales force. EEOC had found a substantial absence of women in this work
force and the point of its investigation was to force Sears to take a series of steps and to make some
compensation for this alleged discrimination. For some, of course, this EEOC action was seen as
the most outrageous example of government intervention: a blatant example of regulatory activism.
It was, in that view, hardly the dispassionate judicious government (or variously called, the lazy
Federal bureaucracy), but the very activist government that Ronald Reagan and others have
campaigned against. In the course of the trial, experts were called in. Experts were asked to testify
about the likelihood of Sears' success, even if it were to pursue precisely what the EEOC might
dictate.

One such expert was the historian Rosalind Rosenberg who seemed to testify that her
research had shown that womenand I am going to paraphrase here for the sake of this
discussionwere not really anxious to become Willy Loman, the stress-plagued, commission-driven
protagonist in "Death of a Salesman." This does not mean that no one woman, or that women
because of some necessarily gender-determined reason, do not want to become Willy Loman.
Rather, it meant that a policy which sought to give people opportunity to be something was only
going to be a policy that worked if people, in this case women, wanted to be that thing. Does this
mean that Sears has no obligation to set up a compensatory program to train women, or to provide
daycare or other support, as part of an as aggressive program to attract and retain female
commission salespeople, self-sacrificing in their approach, etc.? For Professor Rosenberg and others
of us, the answer is probably not.

Professor Rosenberg was sharply criticized, however, for bringing forward, as an expert for
Sears, her data that showing, again to paraphrase, perhaps women were not inclined to do the kind
of work Sears was allegedly preventing them from doing. Her "findings" went against the "interests"
of women. Female scholars in a variety of disciplines were quick to criticize Rosenberg for her
testifying at allfor engaging in discourse other than academic discourse. Some of their arguments
seemed to suggest that Rosenberg was flatly wrong. Others claimed that, even if her analysis were
true, the effects of such testimony go against the interests of women. (You can no doubt recall all of
the old lines about how women couldnt function in the jobs you now hold!)

In re-visiting the large critique on the woman who brought the news that women in general
do not clamor to be Willy Loman, what is lost? What is missing?

Let me make a suggestion about what happened. In criticizing the Rosenberg testimony, we
lost an opportunity to criticize Searsor at least the idea of and type of work that Sears found that
mostly men would be inclined to do. Rosenberg's testimony, in a sense, could be read as a form of
implicit criticism of Sears: that more than half the population tends to find a particular employment
condition at Sears unattractive and that women are not anxious to behave the same way as men is
not a finding that should suggest that women should not be allowed to work in certain jobs. Rather,
it is a finding that could call into question whether anybody should have to be Willy Loman. What is
lost in a discussion like this is an opportunity to provide a critique, not just of a female historian who
testified for an allegedly sexist corporation, but of a system which probably is not doing even the
men in it much good. "The way men do it" escapes criticisminstead, it becomes the standard
against which women's difference, here, women's unequality, is measured. The male model, in its
essential competitiveness, aggressiveness and self-absorption, is assumed to be contributing to the

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success of Sears and, for that matter, the Republic. Moreover, if it prevails, not only will Sears have
earned the "right" to continue doing what it has been doinga right which, if the EEOC was
correct to its original assertion, means that any one woman who tries to ascend in the Sears
organization may be frustrated and unsupported. Beyond that, we have all lost the opportunity to
explore an expression of difference as it might be a critique of a system that may not be good for
men, either.

Does being equal mean doing things the way the men do? And if so, is being equal to
something so subject to serious criticism worth being? If not, how are women who may want to
have opportunities men have to get them, and how can women help change the rules so that their
own voice can prevail, or at least be listened to, in the context of efforts to achieve equality?

The general question can be looked at as above. Then by focusing on athletics, we will want
to discuss this subject in a manner which moves simultaneously from the general and theoretical and
illuminates by means of a particular application, college athletics. We can hope that our particular
example will shed light on the general problem, making it more comprehensible.

In the Sears example cited earlier, most would argue that, given the system in which the
matter is being litigated, the likelihood or chance for any opportunity for effective social criticism to
result is nil. And, if the status quo is affirmed, moreover, the deprivation of opportunity for any
woman who wants the opportunity to work at Sears is great. Surely Rosenberg was testifying for
"the enemy." Whose side was she on, one might ask. Surely, no woman was helped by her argument
unless of course we take a paternalistic approach and suggest that to have a system that keeps
women in a position where at least they cannot be abused is one that is better for them, even if they
do not know it at the time. Do we really think for a moment that Sears, Roebuck or the current
EEOC is really interested in a serious discussion of a condition of employment that is presumed to
be a naturally-occurring artifact of the free market economy, with its emphasis on competition, its
myth of voluntary and free action, its bottom-line orientation? Probably not, but perhaps yes.

With Carol Gilligan's work on difference, some ideas emerge:

Perhaps few women become Willy Loman in the same way that few women achieve
Kohlbergs highest stage of moral reasoning.
Perhaps this very observation that women have a hard time naturally moving from the level
of concern for others, for long term consequences, and for feelings, to the abstract sense of
self, not in relation to others, but as autonomous, free, acting according to principles.
This may suggest why women perhaps do not collectively seem to want to wish to jettison
some part of their voice in favor of an opportunity to be a manor at least a mythical
construct, in this case named, man.
Perhaps such a construct may be no more comfortable for men, as a class, than it appears to
be appealing to women.

(A friend of mine, who is a female psychologist, tells a story of several friends of hers unlike, of
course, Carol Wallenstein in the Times article of some time back, who have given up, their six-figure
Wall Street jobs saying that they needed time to be themselves, to be with people that they loved, or
to enjoy their money. They were saying this at the same time men who were in similar positions but
who were persisting were saying, "I have a terrific pain in my chest." Somehow in choosing to listen

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to their other voice, women chose well for themselves, but they also chose to play a role prescribed
by the sexist who would argue that they just didn't have what it takes to be in the forfeited role in
the first place. For the male observer, for a woman to show this sign of "weakness" confirms the
gender-based differences. For a man to make such a choice, in lieu of a heart attack, let us say,
would simply represent a betrayal of his role as a man.)

Judy Auerbach and her colleagues in their critique of Gilligan in Feminist Studies suggest that
one should be suspicious of an argument like Gilligans that is equally appealing to feminists and to
Phyllis Schlafly. Specifically, they write, "the problem with her book is not that its politics are bad,
but that it lacks politics altogether." Further:

"This lack of politics or any notion of conflicting interests makes Gilligan's a highly palatable
work for both non-feminists and anti-feminists interested in coopting women's issues for
their own gain, be it for votes or profit margins...However, the ambiguity we have discussed
leaves open possibilities for anti-feminist interpretations and applications. Although this
ambiguity does not overshadow the major contribution of the book, it should keep us
mindful of an area in which work by feminist scholars, like Gilligan, is still needed."

In an endnote to the Auerbach piece we find, quoted with approbation, that "Judith Stacey has
leveled similar criticisms against Jean Bethke Elshtain," as follows:

"Elshtain is ultimately far less interested in achieving gender equality than in preserving
female moral sensibilities and that such preservation of separate gender spheres of life has
been historically far more compatible with maintaining systems of social domination than
with challenging them."

Of course this last criticism suggests that the right politics is to be more interested in gender
equalitywhatever that might bethan in moral sensibilities and further that the right politics
might argue for joining those, and perhaps even behaving like those, who have maintained a "system
of social domination."

What can be seen in these Auerbach and Stacey critiques of certain kinds of interests in
"difference" is the tension that I think characterizes the situation in women's sports as well.

Surely Gilligan is asking us to think in a new way, to raise a variety of new questions, and to
look at the way we make social observations so as to find out if our observations are not biased by a
variety of preconceptions, psychological or philosophical, in our ways of thinking. Wherever her
analysis seems to lead in a direction, contrary to the politics of gender equality, however, she comes
up against the same critique as Rosenberg: "whose side is she on?"

Auerbach and her colleagues writing on Gilligan and those who criticized Rosenberg may be
making a mistake by confusing the "observations" of social scientists and the "predictions" of
natural scientists. In suppressing observations in the name of politics, do we lose an opportunity for
one kind of effective social criticism?

This notion emerged for me as a result of a conversation with a physician colleague. Dr.
Sandra Samuels. The possibility is that the natural science elision of observation and prediction
that, in a crude sense, what is correctly observed will predict how something will behave under

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similar conditions at a later timemay be specifically inappropriate for social scientists, where other
variables, such as socialization, which presumably can be altered given the "right" politics, come into
play. The mistaken elision of observation and prediction leads some to be suspicious of any finding
which would seem to predict something for women that would have the effect of limiting their
chance to be equal. In this case, this means being equal to men.

While there are some persuasive arguments suggesting flaws in Gilligan's research, what
emerges, I think, is a fear that her observations about women, if used by those who are presumably
in charge of society, namely men, to keep women in a particular position more compatible with their
"natural psychology," will result in precisely what is to be feared by those who do not want to be
objectified on the basis of sex: forced inequality.

Part of the difficulty for us is to find a way of preserving difference without engendering the
bad consequences of objectification. For me, this opportunity is contained in argument and in
discussion. Discourse must be informed by findings of "fact," but any particular finding which has
the tendency of objectifying or limiting needs to be examined to determine if it is claimed as
predictive, not simply descriptive. Along with this social science approach it seems should come
social criticism. This means not simply assuming that what society is like now is how it should be
(the Alexander Pope trope in reverse).

An organization like the National Association of Women Academic Deans and Counselors
is not focused solely on emulating and entering precincts dominated by men, but on leading in those
areas on critiquing and changing how things are done.

In order to do this one must claim a difference. Perhaps not one rooted exclusively in gender
but in a different set of sensibilities, goals, or strategies. One must use that difference to critique
what is assumed to be the benchmark against which everything else is to be measured.

It seems also important to note here that certain differences, certain preferences for politics,
policies and the like, may be held by persons for other than gender reasons. In the case of sports, the
problem emerges when alleged physiological differences, gender-based and allegedly significantly
different on the basis of sex alone, get confused with other policy preferences which, while perhaps
held by a significant segment of leaders of different sexes are not, in themselves, gender based. To
return to Gilligan, it may not be some physiological or biological difference that accounts for a
different moral voicewe may not know the etiology, nor are we bound to ascribe the voice
exclusively on the basis of gender/genitalia, rather we may want to listen to that voice because it is
different and it may be saying something we prefer, if we think about it.

Sports really confuses these issues, because sports are so dominated by male controlled
organizations and constructsindeed the very idea of what sports means has been described by
some as being autonomous and assertive, traits that one writer finds mostly in men. (This is not
something I find completely credible). Further, at least at some levels of competition, the alleged
physiological differences between most men and most women seem, to some, to legitimize gender
based assumptions about capacity, interest, and ultimately the policies governing those interests.

When we turn to the issue of sports, it is very easy to see what the benchmark against which
equality is to be measured has been. Since the discussion of women's and men's sports were
brought to a head following the initial release of the Title IX regulations, equality was measured in

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relationship to what men had and how men were doing. This argument took different shapes at
different times, however. Our memories are so short that it is probably not a waste of time to at
least briefly review what Title IX is and when it occurred. I will do a minimalist review.

After its passage and the delayed issuance of its implementing regulation several years later,
the applicability of Title IX was most greatly contested in the area of athletics. For the idea of
equalitywomen behaving like men, here the benchmark again being what men were doingwas
simply inconceivable to the male sports establishment. I do not think that this original uproar was
simply the product of a fear of spending more money on women, although surely that was a factor.
The main argument, put forth by NCAA and others, was that sports were different because in this
area of life, at least, men and women were different and should not be mixed, hence sports should
be exempted from coverage. It almost reached the level of threatening male identity and male
hegemony. For some, including George R. Bisacca, general counsel to the ECAC, the issue was a
combination of all of these things. He wrote:

Further, we believe that this approach will be unlawful because the application of an
inflexible equal per capita expenditure standard to persons of unequal ability and/or potential
as a class, must inevitably result in discriminatory treatment against the class with the greater
ability and/or potential when those expenditures are drawn from a common and limited
fund...It can only result in mediocrity, which is the most odious form of discrimination.

Bisacca, whose opinions seem to me fairly representative of the male sports establishment at
the time he was writing, 1979, concludes that certainly, if Title IX must apply to sports, and he
would rather it did not, then it should preserve separation between men's and women's activities.
While everyone is for equality, he writes, it doesn't mean spending money equally. In fact, reading
Bisacca, one begins to wonder why we needed to talk about equality in sports at all because,
perhaps in his terms, the idea of any existing condition of inequality was a fiction.

Robert Simon's book, Sports and Social Values, is a sensitive and intelligent discussion of a
variety of topics, but, for the most part, it leaves much of the male sports ideology pretty much
intact. He posits two views, assimilationism and pluralism, to describe strategies for achieving
equality. The first he describes as sex-blind, a view he attributes to feminists and the philosopher,
Richard Wasserstromand one that Gilligan might not accept, but Auerbach might. (Simon finds
the whole sex-blind idea threatening because it, undermines heterosexuality, clearly, in his view a
laudable gender based difference. "Surely, it is not only permissible but desirable, for example, to
take sex into account when choosing a sexual partner or mate," he writes.) He writes a very
persuasive case for pluralism, which is his way of talking about separate sports for women and men:

"Of course, a rigid system of stereotypical sex roles does severely restrict human freedom.
But pluralism need not be committed to such a system. Rather, it argues that if men tend to
exhibit somewhat different forms of behavior and make somewhat different choices over
the course of their lives, this is unjust only if this produces a further difference in the
concern and respect shown to men and women."

He follows this up with a set of curious analogies when he discusses, not difference, which
he encourages as pluralism, but equality, which he wants us to measure, not in dollars or results, but
rather "qualitatively." Here comes the Bisacca argument, six years later, garbed in philosophical
robes:

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 "One might object that rather than accept the imbalances caused by expensive sports such
as football, it is such sports themselves that should be eliminated. However, it does seem
unfair to deny a football player the opportunity (emphasis mine) to participate in his sport
just because it is more expensive than providing a field hockey player with the same
opportunity to play her sport. After all, they are each receiving the same opportunity to play
the sport of their choice. If football is too expensive or too violent to support, then perhaps
it should be eliminated. But it seems quite another thing to eliminate it just because more is
spent per capita on football players than other athletes. How does this differ from the case
where a school spends more money on the piano player than on the guitar player in order to
give each the same chance to play a favorite musical instrument?"

For me, this begs the question about "opportunity." After all, a college is choosing the sports
it wishes to offer, and at least in the case of Division I football, it is also choosing the students who
will not be given an opportunity but rather a contract to pursue their sports interest. This notion of
opportunity has a naturalist ring to it, but, in fact, we are not really describing opportunities, as
Simon wants us to see them, we are talking about institutional choices.

What does it mean when an institution chooses to offer expensive opportunities for some
men, at the expense of less expensive opportunities for more men or expensive opportunities for
women? In the calculus of "equivalent opportunity" which Simon constructs, it seems inevitable that
we will be able to detect a difference in concern and respect between men and women when we
follow the logic of his argument. The analogy of pianos and guitars might work a little better if
mostly only men could play piano and mostly only women could play guitars, but Alicia De
Larrocha and Andre Segovia put the lie to that argument. Still, even if the analogy were a good one,
it would still be strained if we had a school where we recruited the pianists and bought them the
pianoshardly a response to the need for indigenous students to "play the sport of their choice,
but, in the case of others, offered them guitar lessons because we could no longer afford to buy
organs. Further, would it be "equivalent" if we sought to recruit, on the basis of sex, only men to
engage in the high priced sports and only women to engage in the cheap ones?

"The assignment of significance to sex is not always an objectionable form of sexism,"

Simon tells us. He concludes: "Recognition of difference, conversely, does not necessarily require
relations of dominance and subordination." In this argument, and in many like it, we tend to lose
sight of the difference he wants to recognize.

Let us try to examine the question of difference and put it in the context of a couple of
different ideologies, if we can call them that, about collegiate sports policy which one might have.

I am not going to argue that the ideologies necessarily represent women on the one hand
and men on the other, although, in my reading, they did at one time in our history, in a political
sense, not a natural/physiological/gender one. (Again, I need to avoid the problem of saying that
these two ideologies were separated because of gender differences, at least in their end-stages. One
could argue that what appears to be the womens ideology was reactive, or adaptive, to the
conditions of domination and discrimination and not the product of a different voice, or a different
view.)

I will try to demonstrate that the two competing ideologies can be seen to have been

9
represented by two different interest groups and organizations. First, we have the NCAA, which was
the organization that a governed men's intercollegiate athletic competition and had a predominantly
male membership, at the individual level. (I haven't checked, but would expect that it was highly
unlikely that, at least prior to 1980, the NCAA numbered any exclusively women's colleges among
its institutional members.) The other organization was the AIAW, a group that governed women's
athletics, whose membership and leadership was predominantly women. While the NCAA lacks the
word "men" in its title, the AIAW actually contained a gender identity in its.

The two different ideologieswhich I will draw for the purpose of the discussioncan be
described, in terms that suggest the differences in policy orientation that may or may not be related
to gender differences. Surely gender differences are not required to have these two ideologies.

The first ideological type is one that I will call the educational ideology. In it, sports are seen
as being an aspect of college life, a dimension of education, one part of mental and physical
cultivation. This ideology holds that sports programs should be pretty much integrated with general
campus programs. Athletics should have an educational purpose; they should focus largely on
participation. The most important thing about the sport is that it is an opportunity for people to be
in the sport, more than it is an opportunity for people to watch the sport. It is amateur in the clear
sense of the word; it clearly lacks a professional dimension. Since it is integrated within the life of the
college, it is in some ways representative of the general culture, sentiment, ideology and mission of
the college. It bears a direct relationship with that campus: those engaged in sport will be very much
like the other students at the college, except that those who are athletes will have some athletic
ability and those who are not will have some other equivalent interest or dimension to their lives.
Athletes will be scholars, first, athletes second. The program will be chiefly recreational in the sense
that, while it will be arduous and difficult competitive participation, it is nevertheless done mostly
for the benefit of the people who are doing it.

The second ideological type I will call reputational. In this type, the focus switches in a
variety of ways. As contrasted to the educational type, this treats sports as a somewhat separate
entity, as one of the college's auxiliary enterprises. It does not give up altogether the idea of
education, indeed those who are engaged in it probably get a very good education in sportsthe
"sports industry" if you will. It subordinates, or at best, co-ordinates education with sports. It is, in
some sense, a pre-, semi-, or para-professional enterprise. Students who participate are recruited
their participation is solicited first for the team, second for application for admission. This model is
very conscious of the spectator and such sports programs position themselves to partake of the
maximum amount of revenue from television coverage and other spectator attention. Providing an
entertainment program for the student body, alumni, or for people in the immediate vicinity or
region, this model responds to "markets." While the participants are required to be amateurs, at least
in the sport they are playing for the college, at least in some sports, the college sport resembles the
equivalent of baseball's minor leagues. The major thrust of this type leaves education and arrives at
reputation. There is very little pretense that it serves an educational purpose. Instead seems to be
bound up in the school's reputation and identity. Surely, it is argued, education is served by a
successful teamsupport for the school increases and benefits flow from that. (I might add that
those who advocate this ideology tell us that the profits from some of the activities will provide the
monies to afford the loss leadersin this example, sports for women, which are alleged to have little
prospect for commercial success. Even though, in some cases, this kind of bookkeeping may be
absolutely true, there is a real paternalistic ring to this point of view.)

10
 To review again, in one ideology you see the relationship of sports to the institution as
integrated with the academic program; in the other, as somewhat separate. In one, the purpose is
educational; in the other, reputational. In one, the players are amateurs; in the other, pre-professional
or semi-professional. One is participant-oriented; the other is spectator oriented. One can be
described as recreation; the other entertainment. One is concretely relates to the college's mission;
the other bears an abstract relationship to mission.

As I said earlier, these two types are not necessarily connected to male and female athletics
or to differences between men and women such as those described by Gilligan. In fact, they
represent two policy possibilities to be applied to any sports program, mens, women's, or mixed.

In 1960, for example, a college president addressing the ECAC, stated:

"I am going to argue that a college which has a sports program for any other reason than an
educational reason is soon going to lose control of the program. If the college goes in for
sports as part of a program of public entertainment and public relations, then the public
will dictate the kind of entertainment it wants. If the reason is fundraising then the
fundraisers and the potential donors will determine the program. Whatever the reason may
be the college has lost control, including control of those parts of its educational policy
which are related, e.g., admissions."
\ r,
At the time that this president was writing, what was on his mind was what he referred to as
the "gate receipts" driven problem in athletics. Athletics, particularly some intercollegiate sports,
most notably football, were becoming more and more expensive and the need to raise money was
causing people to examine what their sports ideology should be. Today, a president making a similar
presentation would probably focus on television revenues.

This presentation by this president makes no reference to the sports opportunities for
women, but it describes a view of sports very close to the ideology that I would argue was embraced
by the women's sports establishment in the choices that it made about dimensions of policy and
regulation to be applied to intercollegiate competition for women.

From each of these two strands of thought about athletics one can see a variety of individual
policies and programs following, logically, on them. In the first, the educational model, we see little
need to discuss independent criteria for admissions, financial aid, or academic adjustment for athletic
competition. If athletics is a dimension of education then while athletic ability may be taken into
some account as any other extracurricular or special skill of an applicant, no special admission
procedure needs to take place in order to have the athlete on the campus. After all, athletics is a
dimension of student life, not a primary identifier. Thus, in the educational model, we see a lack of
special admissions for athletes. Further, we see an absence of athletic grants-in-aid. If a person is
needy and there is financial aid to meet that need then that student receives financial aid. But there is
no special granting of aid for a person solely because he or she has athletic ability. Once again, one's
status as an athlete derives from ones status as a student, man or woman.

So what does it mean in this sort of scheme to do recruitment? It would mean making
recruitment a part of the dimension of describing the campus. "We have these opportunities for
those who want to participate in them." So on three very basic points, the first model has the
following characteristics:

11
 No special admissions programs,
No athletic grants-in-aid, and
No special recruitment program.

These, of course, are the very words, the very standards that the AIAW practiced. They are a result
of policy preferences, ideology and mission. They are not related to athletic ability, upper-body
strength, or other psychological or physiological "differences." They may or may not be reflective of
other female sensibilitiesthey certainly do not have to be.

Turning to the second model, the one I called reputational, we see that ones athletic ability
is what a college seeks to recruit: in other words, student status (meaning intellectual achievement
and capacity) becomes at most coincidental or in some cases can be subordinate to ones status
(meaning athletic achievement and capacity) as a member of a sports team. Thus, athletic capacity
and ability becomes the primarily standard on which one decides to try to have someone commit
to his or her university. This is no different in form from wanting to attract an excellent scholar to
an academic program or an excellent musician to a conservatory. It is the content that is different
athletics being, even in the missions of great athletic powers, not a primary mission like teaching,
research and public service.

In sum if the fact that someone is a particularly able athlete becomes the reason why we
want him, then we have to find a way of making sure that he can be admitted.

If it were in the integrated model, there would be no need for the kind of presidential
agreements or NCAA legislation that is now setting a bottom floor (Rule 48) on admissions. This is
because no one who needed special admissions for this purpose would be admitted to begin with in
the educational model, only in the reputational model does such a requirement need to be made.
And, as far as the race argument goes, if a predominantly minority institution could reasonably admit
someone with these low scores, in a sense along with its regular admits, then of course its purpose
could be educational, and it could be justifiable to the extent that admitting anyone with those scores
was justifiable for that institution. (With the advent of Rule 48, it seems that institutions that could
in no way justify admitting someone so different from their regular admitsso outside their normal
missionnow has nothing to fear in competition from the school that could justifiably have
admitted such a star athlete within the context of its mission. What pretends to be an academic
standard really seems to be masquerading for an attempt to control the market and reduce "unfair"
competition from athletes that "selective" institutions could not justify admitting, but less selective
ones could. This, of course, glosses over the whole other argument as to whether the SAT/ACT
tests are valid predictors for minorities.)

Secondly, surely we have to be able to pay (award a scholarship and other benefits) to have
this athlete once one knows that the athlete is somebody we really want. So, regardless of his
financial need, we may want to compensate him for playing with us within the limits agreed upon by
the league governed by our membership organization.

And lastly, we surely want to recruit him because having him is better for us and our
reputation than having him somewhere else.

These three differences are all celebrated in elaborate rules and regulations of the NCAA.

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They represent practices,pertaining to Division I teams that the NCAA has regulated prior to the
passage of Title IX. All three practices now apply to all NCAA Division I sports. The practices
represent choices: there is nothing especially natural about them. But where is the other voice, the
voice for other preferences?

Importantly, these are not really differences between men and women. Until 1982, the
different voice, the alternate standard, was exemplified by the women's sports establishment, in the
form of the AIAW. Ironically, it was a threatened lawsuit against the AIAW accusing it of a violation
of Title IX that led to the change in AIAW's longtime prohibition against athletic grants-in-aid. This
change was at odds with the AIAW philosophy of sport. Once the camel's nose came under the tent,
the collapse of AIAW and of the particular ideology of sport and competition it represented seemed
inevitable.

NCAA, on the other hand, seemed to relax its relentless, but largely unsuccessful, effort to
modify the scope and applicability of Title IX, and began to open opportunities for post-season
competition for women. In a peculiar way, the NCAA seemed more open to women's interests in
being equal to men, than was the AIAW, which surely had women (but a different sports ideology)
at the center of its mission.

The final months in AIAW's history as an organization were occupied in mounting an

unsuccessful antitrust action against the NCAA, an action that predicted, to some extent, some of
the bad consequences of assimilation. What is left is one organization, dominated by men,
possessing an ideology different from the AIAW's, and very largely preoccupied with a series of
issues that can hardly be described as women's issues.

There is general agreement that Title IX made a great difference in opening opportunities for
women. It did not generate a basic discussion of athletic policy, however. Opportunities for women
athletes have increased, not at the expense of men, whose opportunities have also increased. There
are signs of change, however. Charlotte West, writing in Rethinking Services for College Athletes,
notes:

"It is predicted that when future NCAA participation data become available, not only
remission but retrenchment in women's programs will have occurred...if only schools in
Division I, the richest and largest schools in the NCAA, are considered, fewer sports were
offered compared to the previous year."

Dr. West notes a series of improvements for women, then concludes,

"However, even a dozen years after Title IX became federal law, and even with the progress
toward equality, discriminatory practices in collegiate sport are by far the rule rather than the
exception."

Women, who now hold a minority interest in the governing association, now also lack the
same force of federal regulation to pursue the goals of making women's programs equal to men's. As
a result of the Grove City decision, it seems unlikely that Title IX applies to any activity not directly
receiving federal financial support. This decision rejects the idea of infecting discriminationthat is,
if one part of the apple is rotten the quality of the whole apple is tainted. Title IX now seems to
apply in a very narrow way. In fact, it appears that it does not apply to sports, unless the sports

13
receive a special federal subvention.

In addition to losing a separate voice, and, now with diminishing legislative support for an
idea of equality that would measure women's interests in comparison to men's programs. West calls
attention to another disturbing trend. Simon, in defending pluralism and other authors in arguing for
role models, probably did not anticipate that the increase in women's sports opportunities would be
accompanied by a decrease in the number of women coaches. According to Acosta and Carpenter,
quoted by West, in 1984, 53.8% of women's teams were coached by mena clear difference over
what we would find if we looked for evidence of women coaching men's teams. West further tells us
that when men are asked to explain this they report a "lack of qualified women" and when women
are polled for their explanations, they say "the strength of the old boys network."

Were the changes in ideology (the move in women's sports from educational to reputational
models) necessary to offer women greater sports opportunities? Probably not, I would say. Were
they necessary to offer special admission, athletic scholarships and begin recruiting like the men do?
Yes, they were. Are women equal now? Probably not, although they are more equal than they were.
Are things improving for women? The answer is uncertain. Have the basic assumptions about men's
sports been reviewed in an effort to determine what changes might produce equality without totally
sacrificing the educational ideology? No.

One might ask whether the condition of male athletes has improved. In some readings, we
could see an argument to suggest that, with the attention and allocation on the so-called revenue
sports (football, men's basketball, women's basketball), other men's athletic opportunities have not
been advanced and may be declining. The policy differences in admission, recruitment, and
financing mentioned earlier are differences constructed largely to accommodate the explosive
growth and change in the revenue sports. According to Joseph C. Mihalich:

Intercollegiate sports and athletics have become big business... The lure of financial windfalls
fuels the win-at-any-cost syndrome reflected in contemporary sports and society at large.
Reports of academic abuses include admitted athletes with unreasonably low entrance,
credentialsthe equivalent of zero on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scoresfalsifying
academic records and mandating flimsy academic programs for student athletes...Such
incidents tend to be limited to the larger revenue-producing NCAA Division I football and
basketball programs, and the entire issue must be kept in proper perspective.

Let's look at this perspective.

As far as women athletes are concerned, if this is true, then we seem to have changed a
whole ideological perspective to accomplish a small thing; the opportunity for women's basketball to
become like men's basketball. This seems to be a small gain, relatively speaking: certainly it is not
small for women basketball players, but it hardly seems especially important to other women
athletes.

In the meantime, as I indicated, reports indicate that women have lost ground in leadership
in the national organizations and, most importantly, coaching opportunities and, for women athletes,
opportunities to be coached by women.

For men, the policies necessary to pursue the revenue sports and the disappearance of the

14
educational ideology have created an unfortunate dualism: most men's sports do not benefit from
the funding that the big two do, most men's sports do not entail the wide departures from
admissions standards that the big two do, most men's sports do not get the attention that the big
two do. Yet male athletes get tarred with the same sad brush of alleged abuses that paints the big
two. It would be unfair to assume that the same grim picture attributed to football by Professor
Michalich would apply to male tennis or track stars.

The major problem for the NCAA these days seems to be to try to find a way to go beyond
its narrower mandate of defining the rules to implement a "basic policy for all of its activities..."
According to an article by Charley Scott, formerly of the University of Alabama, now at Mississippi
State University, The NCAA is endeavoring:

"...to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program and the
athlete as an integral part of the student body and, by so doing, retain a clear line of
demarcation between college athletes and professional sports."

This is surely the only article in history that has, as its only two references, one to Thomas
Hobbes and the other to the NCAA Manual of Rules. Mr. Scott describes a confused world. The
NCAA is Leviathan, even though Scotts citation is to De Cive. The NCAA must "have the power
to bring peace" because even though the sovereign is the creation of the voluntary consent of its
members who cannot be trusted to act civilly without the sovereign's power, they are expected to
govern themselves, and clearly we know that they cannot be trusted to do so. (This surely does not
sound like the AIAW. But for the college presidents who have wondered just who is the sovereign
and who is the ruled, it does sound like some of the worst fears presidents have expressed about the
NCAA.)

This Hobbesian universe is not that far-fetched. Consider what former President Davison of
Georgia is reported in the Chronicle to have said, in connection with the Jan Kemp case. (This is the
case of the woman "remedial-English instructor at the University of Georgia who charged that two
university officials had fired her because she complained publicly about preferential treatment given
to athletes in the program" [Chronicle, 2/19/86]. The federal court jury awarded her more than $2.5
million in damages.) President Davison said that to "not admit academically underprepared athletes
would have amounted to a 'unilateral disarmament' that would leave the university unable to
compete...at any level.'" This statement, in its disarmament metaphor, purports to describe at least all
of Georgia's potential competitors within the NCM. How can the picture it describes be reconciled
with Mr. Scott's recitation of the NCAA credo of athletes being an "integral part of the student
body"? And, if President Davison is telling the truth about his sister institutions, then it would seem
that the "line of demarcation" between professional and collegiate athletics is already very blurred,
indeed.

We do not seem to be able to find equality, measured in any dimension except perhaps by
Professor Simon's, between men's and women's opportunities. This seems to be largely because
football is so different, so different indeed that we may be making a big mistake thinking of it as a
male sport, perhaps. Perhaps we need to pay attention to the many efforts that have been
undertaken to define its uniqueness. Football may be better thought of as some mythic construct
that, as an emblem, does as much disservice to men as to women, but which exists in some other
dimension, away from our abilities to get there from here. If we leave football aside, perhaps we can
retrieve difference on a more meaningful and manageable scale.

15
 Jay J. Coakley, in Sport in Society, writes:

"Although the structural consequences of sport participation among females are rare, the
social psychological consequences are probably quite common. Research has indicated that
one of the problems associated with the socialization experiences of girls and women is that
they often interfere with the development of autonomy and assertiveness. Instead of
developing a separate and distinct sense of self apart from others, many girls and young
women learn to see themselves strictly in terms of their abilities to nurture others and
maintain supportive connections with other people, especially within the context of the
family (Chodorow, 1978). Of course, caring for others and having affiliation needs are not
bad things (many men could use more of those traits). But girls and women also need
experiences enabling them to see themselves as unique and separate human beings
connected to, but not totally dependent on, specific relationships."

This is a remarkable passage. First, Coakley describes a difference and implies that it is not
natural ("one of the problems...of the socialization experiences of girls and women is that they often
interfere with the development..."). Like Aristotles women, without sports, Coakley's women seem
to be unfinished men. Again, the male "standard"one of alleged autonomy and assertivenessis
left relatively unexamined. In fact, it is treated parenthetically: "many men could use more of these
(female) traits." There is no call here for efforts to reduce the male tendency to be unconnected and
"totally" independent. Instead, "sports" will help women become more like men because, in fact,
male tendencies to be autonomous and assertive are actually embodied in sports participation.
Coakley tells us that s/he and Marcia Westkott have evidence to show that "the potential (for girls
and women to become separate identities) is certainly there." How this set of ideas is reconciled with
the value of team membership and team identity, Coakley leaves us to imagine.

I find Charlotte West, quoted earlier, much more convincing because she not only seems to
want to recognize difference, and not immediately conclude that difference implies a defect, she also
demonstrates special sensitivities to what she describes as a series of "potential role conflicts."
Following an important series of observations about pregnancy (female athletes tend to not want to
use certain contraceptive methods and thus run an increased risk of unwanted pregnancy,
amenorrhea, and eating disorders), she agrees with Anthrop and Allison to whom she attributes the
following analysis and finding:

"Since role conflict is externally derived, the potential for conflict will be reduced accordingly
as society refines and accepts an increasingly broader and humanistic view of sex-role
behaviors."

Professor West concludes:

"As intercollegiate athletics for women becomes more publicly visible, the preoccupation
with winning at the expense of educational values will be one of the greatest problems to
counter. This is a societal as well as an institutional problem that needs the immediate and
careful attention of the best available leadership. Hopefully, women will not be excluded from
the decision-making process.

If the number of female leaders in athletics continues to decrease, women's athletic programs
will mirror to an even greater degree the image of men's programs and forfeit those unique

16
 areas which are presently superior in women's programs. In order to assure the most
effective and educationally sound experience for all students involved in athletics, leadership
should involve a cross-section from the population at large. Role models of each sex and
race are important in the healthy development of all persons. The destiny of the female
athlete, and, similarly, the destiny of the male athlete, should be plotted and guided by women
as well as by men. Only then will destiny show promise."

It appears that, to some extent, West's advice about the need for "immediate and careful
attention from the best leadership" is being taken. The Chronicle notes the formation of a
"president's commission" to focus on academics, finances and rules enforcement. As best I can tell,
however, this panel consists of men.

As we approach a conclusion, let me say that the goals of my presentation has been several:
First, to try to talk about the relationship of the idea of difference to the idea of equality,
specifically as these ideas relate to sports.
Second, to show how the idea of difference has tended to imply separation, based on
gender-ascribed physiological differences, for men and women athletes.
Third, to show that there are at least two different ideologies of sport which I called
"educational" and "reputational." One was embodied by the AIAW and one that is not
formally embraced by the NCAA but made possible by and manifested in the regulations of
the NCAA, in spite of the NCAA's claim to really adhere to the "educational" ideology.
Fourth, to argue that the two different ideologies do not have to be related to gender
differences, although it is possible to entertain ideas that the educational one is more
reflective of some of the moral "difference" ascribed to women.
Fifth, that when equality is measured, it often happens that whatever men are doing is
assumed to be the standard against which women's condition and progress should be
measured.
Sixth, that the reputational ideology is necessary mostly to accommodate only three major
sports, men's football and basketball and women's basketball. It can also be held responsible
for creating the series of problems and scandals entailed when an institution moves away
from an educational approach.
Seventh, that the educational ideology can advance women's and men's athletic interests, and
that, measured in anything other than Simon's "qualitative" standardssay, like, budget and
attentionthe reputational ideology is not advancing the interests of women, or most men,
and in fact may be contributing to a decline in opportunities.
Eighth, with the modification in Title IX's applicability to athletics brought about by the
Grove City decision and the demise of a separate voice for intercollegiate athletics for
women, alternative methods to promote women's athletic interests will need to be found.

In this final section of the paper, I want to suggest some ideas for leadership roles for women:
First, there is an absolute need for discourse on the subject of sports and the variety of
gender-identity-policy issues raised by the Sears case, college athletics, and a variety of other
issues, including the basic question of management style. Women do not need to, and
probably cannot, bring a unified voice to these discussions. But the multitude of voices that
Charlotte West talked about, and the different voice described by Gilligan and others, need
to be heard.

17
 Second, circumstances within colleges and outside are causing educational leaders to review
the effects of the reputational model in sports. These effects can be attributed in part to
overemphasis on winning, selfishness (on the part of athletes and institutions), and the need
to stretch academic standards. Institutions clearly see the value of a prominent, honorable
sports program. They also see the costs of one that strays far from those ideals. This current
crisis may be, to some extent, the creation of men, but, when an institution suffers, all in it
suffer. Presidents will be soliciting the help of a wide variety of personnel to consider how to
bring this situation under control. There is a need for the woman's voice in these
discussions. This is the place to examine the question of whether being equal entails doing
things the way men do.
Third, while I have complained that women's equality tends to be measured in men's terms
and that those standards tend to be left pretty much unexamined, it is nevertheless true that
institutional commitments to equality require continual interest in the situation and status of
women, within whatever model and institution has chosen to embrace. The decline in
leadership roles for women coaches, the demise of a women's sports association, the
subordination of women's interest to other "more pressing" concerns in the NCAA, the
Grove City case limiting Title IX add a variety of other factors argue for focused attention
on women's opportunities. Women have, for the most part, led in bringing this focus to bear
on institutional choices. That leadership role will become even more important, absent
exogenous pressures.
Fourth, the specific problems which women seem to faceall problems attributed by West
to role conflictsare the stuff which women administrators need to be aware, and they,
along with enlightened male colleagues, need to bring attention to these issues as dimensions
of the lives of students whose consequences flow far beyond sports, to academic
performance and physical and mental well being.

Finally, the Miller Lite Report on Women in Sports reports a series of interesting findings from its
survey of more than 1600 female athletes. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents agreed with the
proposition:

"Women have something to teach men about humane competition."

It is to this teaching, and the learning that should accompany it, that we must commit our time and
attention.

W. D. Burns
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey

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