ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the responsibilities of coaches and athletic administrators to view gender equity in athletics not just as a matter of legal or technical compliance, but as a matter of ethical responsibility. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 expresses the nation's collective aspirational belief that girls and boys, women and men, deserve equality in educational experiences and opportunities. After Title IX was passed, legal compliance in classrooms, membership in the marching band, and other school-sponsored activities were relatively straightforward. Determining whether women are being discriminated against in athletics requires a comparison of the new and existing women's programs with the men's program. It was the first part of the 1975 Regulations that gave schools the most trouble—whether the school was providing girls with the proper number of sports opportunities. This led to the creation of the three-part test in the 1979 Clarification.
