NEW YORK -- NCAA president Myles Brand doesn't think e-mail surveys are an effective way to gauge female interest in sports as a method of compliance with Title IX.
Brand addressed the issue during a conference call Thursday on the eve of a Title IX briefing on athletic interest surveys by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington.
"We don't need repeated efforts to undermine the law," Brand said. "Mandating equal opportunity for male and female athletes and clearly stating that sex discrimination is wrong remains essential.
"Title IX has worked, continues to work and indeed has more work to do."
The briefing will focus on the Department of Education's "Additional Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy" in 2005 that allowed schools to treat a lack of response to an e-mail survey as a lack of interest in sports.
"Response rates to surveys, let alone to e-mail, are notoriously low," said Lisa Maatz of the American Association of University Women Legal Advocacy Fund, who also participated in the conference call. "It's quite frankly ridiculous to use spam as an effective way to enforce civil rights."
Brand reiterated his previous stance on the e-mail surveys. He co-authored a letter on behalf of the NCAA to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings in 2005, asking her to rescind the clarification and return to the 1996 clarification that allowed multiple ways to prove interest.
The NCAA, through its executive committee, unanimously passed a resolution advising schools to not solely rely on electronic surveys.
"We believe institutions would be legally vulnerable if they solely relied on a survey," Brand said.
The NCAA letter indicated women receive 42 percent of participation opportunities on campuses and 36 percent of athletic department finances.
Institutions have three ways to comply with Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools and opened academic and sports opportunities for women. A school can show proportionality of female athletes to female students on campus; or a history of increasing sports for women; or prove it has met the interest and ability of the underrepresented group.
Jessica Gavora, vice president of policy for the College Sports Council, will speak at Friday's briefing along with Jocelyn Samuels, vice president of the National Women's Law Center; Judith Sweet, an NCAA consultant; and Daniel Cohen, senior associate of Rogers & Harding.
The College Sports Council (CSC) wants Title IX reform to avoid men's sports cuts, while advocates of the law say its original intent of expanding opportunities and equitable treatment needs to be enforced.
