Commissioner Lisa Graham Keegan showed up after that plan was considered and left the meeting early without talking to reporters about why she missed the vote.
Most of the recommendations considered yesterday had been proposed by committee members at a December meeting.
University of Maryland Athletic Director Debbie Yow, who proposed the recommendation that produced the tie, said she was satisfied because, under commission rules, the deadlock means it will still go into the report.
Yow’s proposal was the one that had drawn the most wrath from women’s groups. Her original proposal allowed for a seven percent leeway, which would permit schools to comply by giving women 43 percent of athletic opportunities even though they make up 56 percent of college enrollment nationwide. At present, 42 percent of all athletic opportunities are given to women.
The proposed changes alarmed women’s advocates who prefer the status quo.
“The commission has opened the door for the secretary to do a lot of damage to Title IX,” said Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation. “They changed the way of counting collegiate participation. The number of male athletes will be deflated; the number of female athletes will be inflated.”
Commission co-chairman Ted Leland, athletic director at Stanford University, disagreed. He said his recommendation to count a fixed number of roster spots instead of actual participants would prevent a school from stacking “100 women on the rowing team” to artificially inflate the number of female athletes in order to comply with the proportionality requirement.
Wrestling advocates were disappointed that the committee did not recommend the elimination of proportionality. But they were pleased by the recommendations that the committee did approve.
“It’s very obvious that everyone recognizes that there needs to be change, and this is a great first step,” said Mike Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association.
“It will certainly stem further loss of programs,” said Moyer, whose organization has filed a lawsuit claiming Title IX has led to the elimination of hundreds of men’s sports teams.
Title IX prohibits gender discrimination in public and private schools that receive federal funding, which almost all do. It covers admissions, recruitment, course offerings, counseling, financial aid, student health and student housing, as well as athletics.
The commission only looked at sports, where the law’s effect has been especially profound. The number of girls participating in high school sports rose from 294,000 in 1971 to 2.8 million in 2002. The number of women in college sports increased fivefold during the same time. But about 400 men’s college teams were eliminated during the 1990s, with wrestling taking a particularly hard hit.
—The Associated Press contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Sean W. Coughlin contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.