"Title IX has been around for 25 years. We're just now getting around to doing something about it," says Carole A. Kleinfelder, who has been the coach of the women's lacrosse team for the past 20 years and is currently on a leave of absence.

Polling the Experts

In 1997, the Women's Sports Foundation, a New York based Title IX advocacy organization, compiled data from colleges and universities across the country, and gave them each a grade based on their commitment to equity. The study was based on data gathered from the 1995-96 school year.

Harvard was awarded a B+, one of the highest grades given to any NCAA division I-AA school, and a tie with Yale and Dartmouth.

The study concluded that while participation among male and female athletes at Harvard was fairly equal, there are still large discrepancies in spending.

Last month, As part of an 18-month long review process for NCAA certification which the department must undergo every 10 years, the Harvard Athletic Department completed a self-study that yielded similar results.

In particular the study found that while opportunities for women athletes at Harvard are more extensive then ever before, financial inequities still exist between men's and women's athletics, particularly in the areas of recruiting budgets and coach's salaries.

According to figures published in the 1996-97 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act report, 60.7 percent of Harvard's operating budget was spent on men's sports in '96-'97. Even eliminating football, a cost-heavy men's sport with no women's equivalent, men's sports still spent more than 55 percent of the total athletic operating budget.

The report also showed that men's teams spent almost three times as much on recruiting during '96-'97 than women's teams did, and that the average salary of head coaches of men's teams was over $8,000 more than that of women's coaches.

Patricia W. Henry, senior associate director of the athletic department, cautions against relying too heavily on such raw statistics.

"It's not all a numbers game," Henry says. "These charts don't always tell you the whole story. The whole compliance issue is so much driven by numbers. On the one hand, we need to have a measuring stick, but I don't know how good a stick it is."

Henry notes that salaries are determined by a variety of factors, including experience, performance and market value, none of which are reflected in the statistics.

"You use all three to figure it out. One of the things which causes a lot of the discrepancy is that we happen to have a lot of people who have been here for a long time, and they're on the men's side," Henry says.

Henry says she is confident that coaches who have been at Harvard for the same amount of time and have experienced similar levels of success are being paid equitably.

However, Kleinfelder, questions using market value to determine coach's salaries.