High School sports threatened by Title IX's gender quota

On February 8, the College Sports Council (CSC) sent letters to 12 pubic school districts nationwide urging them to resist pressure from the National Women's Law Center to enforce gender quotas in high school athletics.

In the letter, CSC Chairman, Eric Pearson stated, "We believe the application of the Three-Part Test to scholastic sports will unnecessarily compel you to reduce participation opportunities for boys in your school district in a manner that could violate the Constitutional rights of your students."

The CSC's letter supported a legal opinion letter sent on the same day by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) to 12 regional offices of the U.S. Office of Civil Rights.

The CSC's letters are posted on the CSC's website here:
http://collegesportscouncil.org/newsroom/display_releases.cfm?id=34

The PLF's legal opinion letter is posted here:
http://www.pacificlegal.org/page.aspx?pid=1482

Besides the significant constitutional questions and likely legal challenges, the problem with forcing a gender quota on high school athletics is that if schools cannot increase their numbers of female athletes, administrators will have no choice but to cut boys teams and cap their rosters in order to make their gender ratios 50% female to 50% male.

Nationwide, there are currently 1.3 million more boys participating in high school sports than girls. Using a gender quota to enforce Title IX in high school sports would put those young athletes at risk of losing their opportunity to play.

Reporting on the story were USA Today - 
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/2011-02-08-titleix-letters_N.htm

and the New York Times -
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/sports/09preps-titleix.html