J Robinson, the University of Minnesota’s wrestling coach, has no problem with Title IX, the law that forbids gender discrimination in academics and school athletics. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 reads: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal assistance."

"There’s nothing wrong with that," says Robinson. But, he adds, the way Title IX has been implemented sets him boiling. "It says no person. No person. Does that include women? Does that include men? [If so] then you can’t drop men’s programs."

While Title IX requires gender equity in all parts of education and related activity, only in sports has its application caused widespread controversy. To comply, the federal government has ruled that schools must offer athletics opportunities, scholarship money, and other resources based on the proportion of men and women enrolled. If they don’t, the schools will lose millions of dollars in federal aid. So, over the last 15 to 20 years, colleges have added women’s sports and coaches, added and improved facilities, and increased budgets and scholarships.

But at the same time, in a backward approach to creating equity, some schools have dropped men’s sports—usually nonrevenue programs like wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, and even baseball. Long-time Gopher women’s swimming coach Jean Freeman says Title IX is not to blame. "The way I see it, athletic directors have been told they have to [come into compliance] for 15 years," she says. "And now it’s crunch time and they didn’t do anything about it. I’m very thankful that at Minnesota, we moved toward equity by building women’s sports rather than by cutting men’s sports." (At the University of Minnesota, women’s hockey, soccer, and rowing have been added in the last seven years. No men’s sports have been added or eliminated.)

Freeman says the reluctance of sports administrators to act points to the very need for Title IX. "Colleges, for some reason, are amazingly exempt to the changes in the rest of society," she says. "I do not think we would be where we are today without Title IX."

The financial consequences of opposing Title IX are dire, but the University of Minnesota has shown support beyond that of most schools by creating and maintaining separate administrations for men’s and women’s athletics, requiring cross-departmental approval of major expenses, and preparing a broad financial review of athletics due to be presented to regents in December.

But Robinson argues that the entire premise of counting numbers and money to comply is wrong. "For a quota, for proportionality, to work, people have to look at things the same way. If not, then it’s comparing apples to oranges," he reasons. "Do men and women think about anything the same way? . . . Why would you think about sports the same way?" A more valid test would be based on "interest," he asserts, both in terms of participation and in attendance and revenue. "Interest in women’s sports has grown to a degree, but it has been artificially created," he says, using the example of the NBA underwriting the women’s pro basketball league, the WNBA. "If you aren’t willing to work for it, it isn’t very important to you, is it? Show there is interest, bring in the people, then you get rewarded."

To some, proving interest in terms of money and attendance points to what is wrong with college sports. "The last time I checked, this was supposed to be about educational opportunities for student-athletes, not about putting people in the stands and seeing how much money we could make," says Gary Wilson, head coach for women’s cross country and track and field. "Title IX gets the blame and it isn’t Title IX’s fault."

Many coaches instead point to football’s 85 scholarships (more than four times the next biggest sport) and relatively huge budget as the primary roadblock to ever achieving equity. But to Robinson, big-revenue sports have earned some of their perks (although he does disagree with some of the spending). "Do you need to charter a plane to fly to Iowa? [The way Title IX is implemented is] saying that if the men’s basketball team can afford to charter a plane, then the women’s team needs to do it too. It’s a big waste of money. We’ve lost common sense."

To Freeman, who has coached at Minnesota since 1972, the interest test also doesn’t work because of the decades of athletics discrimination that preceded Title IX. "When there has been unfair treatment, the numbers in an underrepresented group are not going to be there," she says. "When you are not in that minority group, you don’t understand that."