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1 Willamette Sports L.J. 1 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/wlmsplj1 and id is 1 raw text is: Willamette Sports Law Journal Volume 1:1 Winter 2004 Title IX: Straining Toward an Elusive Goal By Jennifer E. Powell* Introduction Title IX, praised for its great impact on women's interscholastic and intercollegiate sports, celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 2002. In 1971, before the law was enacted, fewer than 300,000 female students (1 in 27 females1) participated in interscholastic athletics.2 By 1976, over two million females were participating in sports3, an increase of 600%. Today, nearly one out of every two females participates in sports. Despite these impressive strides in female involvement in athletics, Title IX does not effectively equalize the athletic world between the sexes. In real life, nothing is perfectly equal and fair. Athletic programs cannot cater to every athlete's needs and desires. Limited budgets and low-levels of interest in particular sports often result in schools creating single-sex teams in certain sports. At such a school, for example, female athletes interested in playing a sport only offered to male athletes might seek to join the male team, or vice versa. Is this appropriate? Should females be allowed to play on all-male * Jennifer Powell is a third-year student at Willamette University College of Law, she expects to earn her Juris Doctor in May, 2004. 1 Kimberly Capadona, The Scope of Title IX Protection Gains Yardage As Courts Continue to Tackle he Contact Sports Exception, 10 SETON HALL J. SPORT L. 415, 423 (2000). 2 Deborah Brake, Symposium Competing in the 21st Century: Title IX Gender Equity, andAthletics: The Struggle for Sex Equality in Sport and the Theory Behind Title ll, MICH. J. L. REFORM 13, 15 (Fall and Winter 2000 and 2001). 3 Jessica E. Jay, Women's Participation in Sports: Four Feminist Perspectives, 7 TEX. J. WOMEN & L. 1, 4 (1997) (citing Joan O'Brien, The Unlevel Playing Field, Salt Lake Trib., Sept. 4, 1994, at A9). 4 jd. 5 See Capadona, supra note 1, at 423. 1