The bumpy road to legal equality for men and women in athletics -- a 30-year-long trip laced with potholes, roadblocks, fender benders and angry finger pointing -- has jolted to an important intersection.

Title IX, the legislation passed to make opportunities equal for men and women in federally funded schools, turned 30 this year. And with its birthday came the appointment of a commission charged with thoroughly examining it.

Celebrated by some people as a landmark work-in-progress for athletes across the country, and abhorred by others who say it has been more damaging than progressive, Title IX continues to tug at the purse strings and emotions of college athletic directors, presidents and coaches.

A 15-member commission appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige played host to four town hall meetings across the country last summer and this fall. The commission now must digest the often-conflicting views expressed in no uncertain terms by panelists and the public.

The findings of the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics will, at the very least, affect the way Title IX is interpreted and possibly modified.

And earlier this year, the National Wrestling Coaches Association sued the Department of Education, contending that Title IX led to discriminatory elimination of hundreds of men's athletic programs. The suit is pending.

Because wrestling has been eliminated at scores of universities, its proponents have moved front and center in anti-Title IX discussions.

According to NCAA statistics, in 1980 there were 374 men's wrestling teams. In 2001 there were 229.

Title IX discriminates against men's teams, said Gary Abbot, director of special projects for USA Wrestling, at the Colorado Springs town hall meeting.

"Every men's sport will be devastated," he said.

The battle lines have been drawn -- and the commission has its hands full.

Ted Leland, co-chair of the commission and athletic director at Stanford University, said the group was appointed to "define the debate" for the secretary of education and for the public.

"At this point there is nothing that can be concluded," Leland said in Colorado Springs. This was the theme of the commission: collect information, listen to the arguments.

Lisa Graham Keegan, commission member and chief executive officer of the Education Leaders Council, said: "I would just tell you what we seem to be hearing, over and over again, is that Title IX, yes, it's working to promote opportunities for women. Some places, not so much," Keegan said.

After hearing arguments from hundreds of people who convened in Atlanta in August, Chicago in September, Colorado Springs in October and San Diego in November, the commission now has the job of sifting through the information and clearing the slate.

From the beginning

The 1972 legislation, one of 13 amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, started a revolution in the way that federally funded schools treat women in athletics and academics.

It simply stated: "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 program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

This single sentence has been clarified, contested in lawsuits filed by both men and women, and debated endlessly to determine precisely how best to provide opportunities for both genders in athletics.

In 1979, the Department of Education said a school must meet one of three criteria to comply with Title IX, often referred to as the three-pronged test: fulfill the proportionality goal -- the percentage of men and women athletes must equal the percentage of men and women in the general student body; show it had recently expanded opportunities for women, or prove that women had been accommodated.

"There was a theory out there that women didn't have an interest," said Bernice Sandler, senior scholar at the Women's Research and Education Institute in Washington, D.C. "Title IX proved that wrong."

Sandler has studied the legislation from the beginning -- and she was one of the women behind it.

"I really thought, in one or two years [sex discrimination] would be fixed," Sandler said. "I was extraordinarily naive."

The beginning of the road to Title IX hit home for Sandler when, in 1969, she applied for a full-time position at the University of Maryland, and a co-worker told her she came on "too strong for a woman." And that was why when Sandler didn't land any of the seven open positions, she decided to do something about it.

She studied the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex, excluding "educational institutions in their educational activities."

Sandler found a presidential Executive Order that prohibited federal contractors from discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin. It was dated Oct. 13, 1968, and it included gender.

Sandler spent almost three years conducting interviews with women who felt discriminated against and men who supported change. Because there were so few people actively pursuing cases against sex discrimination, Sandler quickly found Edith Green, D-Ore., who had worked with sex discrimination in higher education.

Then, after extensive investigations, seven days of Congressoinal hearings that resulted in a two-volume set of nearly 1,300 pages of information, Green's bill was passed and signed into effect by President Richard Nixon June 23, 1972.

An uneven playing field

Since then, it's been a tug-of-war, but neither side has fallen in the mud pit. In the early years of Title IX there were questions about precisely what the law required of college athletic departments and legal challenges that followed.

Originally, Sandler and others saw the need for Title IX in an academic setting, with the lack of women in educational positions. Today, Sandler says Title IX has made landmark movements for women.

However, even with this, Sandler said, "We're obviously not there yet." And even though many athletic directors argue against the proportionality aspect of the test today, Sandler said it was football coaches who originally suggested it. "Back then, proportionality didn't seem that bad because of the numbers," Sandler said. "The worry about proportionality wasn't there because there were fewer women enrolled in schools."

Meeting the proportionality test simply was easier.

Tim Curley, Penn State's athletic director, said funding is the primary challenge for schools' compliance of Title IX.

He said the Big Ten Conference made living up to Title IX a priority, but "every school is challenged from a funding standpoint, including Penn State."

Penn State's general student body is about 52 percent male and 48 percent female. The athletic scholarships given to men are about 54 percent to men and about 46 percent to women.

While it is possible, with better planning, to keep men's sports while maintaining or even adding women's, and all the while working on the proportionality aspect of Title IX, Curley said, it is not easy and many athletic directors hope there will be some "relief" in how proportionality is applied.

Despite the difficulties of meeting Title IX expectations, the progress is undeniable.

Since 1972, there has been a more than 400 percent increase of women playing college sports and more than 800 percent increase of girls playing high school sports.

"It wasn't suddenly women wanted to play sports," Sandler said. "It was finally the schools opened up the doors and invited them in [and] women stormed the doors."

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, women's participation in college athletics since Title IX's passage has grown from 32,000 to 163,000.

And while the numbers have continued to increase since the early '70s, members of the Women's Sports Foundation argue it's still not enough.

According to a study by the Foundation released in August, women make up 53 percent of Division I student populations while receiving 41 percent of the opportunities, 43 percent of scholarship dollars, 36 percent of athletic operating budgets and 32 percent of recruiting monies.

The issue at hand

While the original legislation was proposed because of the sex discrimination in education, athletics since has been the centerpiece of discussion.

"Title IX was written 30 years ago," commission member Rita Simon said. "Are we working toward it too slowly? Are there differences in equal opportunities for different kinds of sports?"

Simon, who also is the founder and president of the Women's Freedom Network and professor in the School of Public Affairs and Washington College of Law at American University, said: "I think we have to look at it and say 30 years is a long time. Where are we now compared to where we want to be in total compliance with Title IX?"

After 30 years, men's teams have been cut, with many athletic directors arguing it was because of Title IX. But Sandler contends there are many myths about Title IX and its repercussions for men's teams.

Wrestling advocates have contended Title IX definitely has been detrimental to the sport, noting that 108 schools dropped programs between 1984 and 2000.

But Sandler contends that most men's teams have been dropped because of irresponsible financial planning by athletic directors, who use Title IX as a "distraction" for their actions.

Penn State President and commission member Graham Spanier said finances are relevant.

"We can't just come up with some big grand dream and expect it to happen," he said. "I think it would be a big mistake if we came out of this thing [and said], well, here's what needs to happen, so let's ask the government to pay for it."

Much debate clearly has focused on whether men's sports have been eliminated because of Title IX or because of tight finances. This has led to what some believe to be the "unintended consequences" of Title IX -- cutting men's teams to help move toward proportionality.

But while it is true that men's teams have been cut, the number of men's teams still outweighs the number of women's. According to the General Accounting Office 2001 report on adding and dropping teams, from 1981 to 1999 there were 3,784 women's teams added and 36 men's. But today there are still about 170,000 men's teams and about 150,000 women's.

An argument posed by Title IX critics is that some schools have added women's sports that don't draw that much interest by women.

But even after the chopping away of less popular men's sports, Sandler said many schools have yet to fully enforce Title IX.

The commission devoted considerable attention to the proportionality aspect at its Colorado Springs meeting.

The question of why are there still schools 20 to 30 percent off of proportionality was left unanswered.

Commissioners at the Colorado Springs meeting expressed frustration at the inconsistency of numbers cited by those who spoke about the success -- or lack thereof -- of schools on the proportionality test.

The commission spent a large portion of time arguing that they did not have enough data to completely identify the problems in the proportionality prong of Title IX .

Spanier said Penn State is among the best schools in compliance with Title IX -- almost within the 2 percent mark on the proportionality test. "We have no intention of changing that," Spanier said.

And while every men's team at Penn State has roster caps, including football, about 100 male walk-ons are left out. Even as Penn State's percentage gives off a good impression, other schools do not have the same happy ending.

A lot of the numbers the commission heard didn't add up, and this left some commission members questioning the enforcement of proportionality.

"Now, I know there's some bad apples out there," Spanier said. "You know, we may argue about, between the top 10 or 20 universities, are they good or bad because they're at 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent off the number, but we know darn well there are some people that are 20 and 30 percent off, and why haven't they been shut down?"

Sandler said a lot of the problems stem from women's fears of going after their schools.

As of June 7, 2002, the Office of Civil Rights, the watchdog of Title IX, was monitoring 111 intercollegiate and interscholastic cases that involved the three-part test.

"They have to have a complaint," Sandler said, and people are afraid of filing, fearing the backlash from it. It takes time for the government to investigate. "It hasn't been well enforced," she said.

Where to go now

Spanier said the problem with most of the arguments presented in Colorado Springs -- by both men and women -- is this: too much was a rehashing of the past.

"I would like to make a pitch for us taking a more forward-looking approach than looking back," he said. "I think if our commission can have a legacy, it should really be what can we collectively do to enhance opportunities for young men and women going forward. I think everybody around the table, after hearing 150 people already, is a little bit confused about exactly what the right thing is to do."

But, in the end, Spanier speculated there could be a change in the regulations, a new letter of clarification or additional interpretations that flow from subsequent court decisions.

Spanier said because of the fear surrounding the three-part test, on both sides, change could be an option for the commission to consider.

And while the arguments and fears continue to circulate, the commission has a tough job to do when it presents its findings to Paige in January.

Keegan said: "If we can get to the end of the game by coming up with the magic -- the silver bullet -- that solves all these problems, that would be great. But I think that there is a more realistic and absolutely invaluable goal that we can attain, and that's to identify for the secretary of education what the reasonable arguments are on either side of these issues."

So the "reasonable arguments" soon will fall into to the hands of Paige, who ultimately will map the direction the 30-year-old law will go.

"About the only thing everybody's agreed on is that Title IX will not be abandoned," Spanier said.