Literature Review #1

     Carpenter, Linda Jean, and R. Vivian Acosta. Title IX. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics, 2005.


The book is about male and female equality in sports and in social life through Title IX, and what implications this has on society in general. The book interprets policies and regulations of the Title IX saga, and it goes through the process of getting to this decision.

Carpenter has been involved in Title IX and gender equity issues in sport for over 30 years, and she is sought after after to speak at multiple conferences. She is also a professor at New York's Brooklyn College, and has received numerous awards for her work on sport equality and so on. Dr. Acosta is a former president of the NAGWS (National Association for Girls and Women in Sport), and has been involved in this kind of work for more than 30 years as well. She works with Carpenter at New York's Brooklyn College, and has written quite a bit on the topic as well.

One obvious key term defined in the very beginning of the book is Title IX, which basically states that "no person in the U.S shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance"
Specifically for higher education sports, allocation of resources should be distributed fairly equal for both male and females as a whole, and if institutions cannot prove that the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex are not being met then, they are liable for convocation with the board of NCAA to explain themselves.

"In providing financial assistance to any of its students, a recipient shall not on the basis of sex, provide different amount.. of such assistance, [or] limit eligibility for such assistance" (66).
"The policy interpretations tell us that financial aid dollars need to be distributed in "substantially equal amounts""(69)
"The policy interpretations graciously provide two acceptable excuses for not meeting the "substantially equal" yardstick: (1) imbalances created by non-discriminatory grants of in-state versus out-of-state-fees and (2) when not all financial aid available in a given year is distributed so that a new team is able to stagger grants over the first few years of the team's existence." (71)