New survey raises doubts regarding Title IX in NCAA

INDIANAPOLIS -- NCAA President Myles Brand criticized a new survey schools can use to demonstrate compliance with Title IX, saying it doesn't adequately reflect the interest in women's athletics and could harm its growth.\nThe Education Department's Internet-based survey, announced Monday by the federal government, was designed to help schools scientifically gauge whether they must expand or create women's teams to meet demand.\n"The e-mail survey clarification will not provide an adequate indicator of interest among young women to participate in college sports," Brand said Tuesday in a written statement. "Nor does it encourage young women to participate, a failure that will likely stymie the growth of women's athletics and could reverse the progress made over the last three decades."\nBrand also said the new Title IX standard should have been debated publicly. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex at any school that receives federal money.\nSchools have long been able to comply with the Title IX law by proving they have met the sports interests of women, but never before has the government endorsed and promoted a way to measure that.\nEnforcement has been politically touchy, but the debate has quieted since the Bush administration opted in 2003 not to change Title IX rules after months of review.\nUnder the new plan, schools are encouraged to periodically survey all full-time undergraduates -- or at least all of the underrepresented sports gender, presumably women.\nSchools are also advised to conduct the survey in a way designed to generate a big response, such as by e-mailing students and following up.