The controversial future of Title IX has moved into the hands of U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige after the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics submitted its final report last week.

Paige used Title IX’s 30th anniversary to create the commission in 2002 to evaluate the law, address the controversy surrounding it and present recommendations the Department of Education.

“That controversy extended into the commission’s debates and continues in the interpretations ascribed to various parts of the final report,” said Cary Groth, NIU’s athletics director and one of the 15 members of the commission.

Title IX is the part of the 1972 Education Amendments that requires equal opportunity for men and women in education programs. The law has been credited with allowing an increase in women’s participation in sports and has been blamed for the cutting of some men’s programs.

Four themes were presented in the commission’s report — commitment, clarity, fairness and enforcement.

The commission wants Education to reaffirm its commitment to Title IX’s goal of providing gender equality. The report states that during the commission’s public hearings there was no testimony suggesting that Title IX should be repealed. However, it heard from people who question the sincerity of the government’s commitment to Title IX.

Clarity and consistency about the purpose and enforcement of Title IX is a problem the commission wants Education to resolve. It would like to see a national campaign by Education to educate institutions on the ways to be compliant with the Title IX. One specific area of confusion institutions face when trying to comply with Title IX is the use of private funds to support underfunded teams.

Universities and secondary schools across the country facing tighter budgets are being accused of cutting men’s teams to remain compliant with Title IX, according to testimony before the commission. In order for Title IX to be fair to both men and women, the commission is calling upon Education’s enforcement branch, the Office of Civil Rights, to make it clear that the cutting of teams for the sole purpose of being Title IX compliant is not an acceptable practice.

The commission recommended Education to encourage institutions to use sound financial practices concerning athletics expenditures. The commission also suggested that Paige recommend to Congress that college athletics receive an antitrust exemption.

Enforcement of Title IX received the most attention in the report with nine of the 23 recommendations addressing how the Office of Civil Rights ensures educational institutions remain compliant.

Besides asking the Office of Civil Rights to consistently enforce Title IX, the commission made several recommendations on the best way to deal with problems athletic programs are facing when using the “proportionality” prong of the “three-part test.”

The three-part test refers to the ways in which an institution can demonstrate compliance to Title IX. The institution can show compliance by providing opportunities for women and men in intercollegiate sports that are proportionate to their respective enrollments. Another method is to show a history or continuing practice of providing equal opportunities for men and women in the institution’s athletic program. The third method of compliance is to show the program has “fully and effectively” catered to the interests of the members of the under-represented sex. An institution only needs to pass one of these tests to be considered compliant.