By Jesica Gavora

Reviewed by Nicole Tigno

In her book, Tilting the Playing Field, Jessica Gavora tells us that although the Title IX amendments to the Civil Rights Act were originally conceived to provide women equal opportunities in schools, the law is doing so at the expense of men.

Gavora, now a speechwriter with the U. S. attorney general, takes us through the most controversial Title IX disputes such as universities cutting men's wrestling teams, men being kicked out of a feminist teacher's classes and even sexual harassment charges involving a six-year old. A Brown University academe defending that school's Title IX compliance lost despite weighty logical arguments, Gavora relates.

In a Boston College case, a feminist teacher had barred a male student from class on the grounds that his presence would prevent her female students from the capacity to "really think." The teacher claimed keeping men out of her class was necessary to compensate for past discrimination against women.

But beyond the anecdotes of feminism gone awry, Ms. Gavora supplies thorough research from a pool of sociologists, politicians, academicians, statisticians, behavioral scientists and reporters to support her thesis: That the Title IX compliance requirement of strict "proportionality" has led to less sports opportunities for men.

"Proportionality" requires not merely a 50/50 gender ratio of varsity students but a ratio that mirrors the entire student body. This forces universities to "doctor" their athletic programs and cut men's sports teams without adding more women's teams.

On the PBS program 'Think Tank', Gavora once gave an illustration of Title IX's ill effects. One of many cited in her book.

"A good example is occurring today at Miami University of Ohio, where they're dropping three of their men's teams, men's wrestling, men's soccer, men's tennis, to achieve gender equity... a proportional representation of men and women, equally, in their athletic program. Miami University has a 55 percent female undergraduate student body, so the law says they have to have 55 percent of their athletes that are female."

The problem was the difficulty in attracting that many female athletes. Not that many women liked sports. Despite such trends, Gavora says, Title IX is based on the assumption that girls have the same interests as boys and to the same degree.

"Do the activists who are leading the fight for Title IX quotas really represent the grievances, wishes and aspirations of the majority of American women?" the author asks. "Are girls and women really, as the law has been twisted to assume, identical in their interests to both boys and men?"

Gavora fights numbers with numbers, citing studies that show not only female students' relative lack of interest in sports but that sports coaches have gone out of their way lowering athletic requirements for women.

Some tricky legal concepts such as the "proportionality test" used as basis for Title IX compliance and "disparate impact theory" used to justify the proportionality test are best explained by the book's numerous analogies for the layman (or laywoman). Gavora even touches philosophical cords in her commentary of feminist and postmodern concepts such as "social construction."

Social construction presumes that girls would rather dance than join the football team because they had been conditioned to do so by their environment. An upbringing that provided them dolls to play with in childhood, for example, helped form a pre-conceived notion of femininity for them, this theory goes.

The famous line from the Kevin Costner film The Field Of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come," is a common argument for feminists who claim women will be just as athletic as men if sports opportunities are opened for them. Unfortunately, facts show that the women have not been coming out to play despite the wide-open field having been built.

In an attempt to discredit "social construction," Gavora uses several theories. Among them is the Darwinian-inspired theory of "sexual selection."

Sexual selection holds that behavioral evolution (man in his hunter role and woman in her nurturing role throughout the ages) had made one sex more inclined towards the rough sports and the other less so. However, this theory seems to be a mere historically expanded version of the same social construction theory it tries to argue against.

The more appropriate counter-argument vs. social construction found in Gavora's book would be the innate biological differences between man and woman. Such clearly defined differences in the physiological/hormonal make-up of man and woman are more credible in supporting the thesis that women are less inclined to rough it up on the sports field than men are.

"Tilting the Playing Field" also talks about how Title IX is now used to deem birth control pills and abortion "medically necessary" for women.

Gavora considers her book and attempt at a new brand of feminism. One that believes in women's rights as well as men's. The fact that she played serious high school basketball when Title IX was born in 1972 lends the book even more credibility.

Yet critics such as Catherine Pieronek in the Journal of College and University Law, warns readers to watch out for Gavora's simplified legal jargon. "Read the book, but read it carefully," Pieronek advises.

If Gavora is right and Title IX is premised on the belief "that young girls aren't worthy of respect and admiration unless and until they act like young boys," then a legal makeover is indeed imperative.

Soon after the May 2002 publication of "Tilting the Playing Field", Education Department Secretary Roderick Paige appointed a commission to review Title IX regulations.

On February 28, the commission confirmed that "After 30 years of the Title IX great progress has been made but more needs to be done to create opportunities for women and girls and retain opportunities for boys and men."

The "proportionality test" however still stands as basis for Title IX compliance. It was concluded that the test could be revitalized "if the Secretary of Education will provide new guidelines" to the three-prong rule, as it is often called.

In the end, Gavora's book has grabbed the attention of legislators and provided numerous leads to any future misinterpretations the law may yield. It has tilted the Title IX scale to the other side of the playing field, the men's side. With the recent commission findings one hopes to achieve balance from here.

A 2003 graduate of the University of the Philippines, Miss Tigno interned with Agence France-Presse in Manila