Group Rallies Behind Title IX

A week after a Bush administration commission approved recommendations that opponents say could weaken Title IX, top female athletes gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to celebrate the progress of women in sports and to demand that the law be preserved.

Officially, the athletes convened for an awards ceremony marking the 17th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, honoring outstanding female high school and college athletes as well as several gold-medal winning Olympians. But the event also was a rally in support of Title IX, the 30-year-old law that prohibits sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal funds, including the nation’s high schools and universities, and that has been widely credited for the growth and success of women’s sports.

The luncheon was sponsored by Girl Scouts of the USA, Girl Incorporated, the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, the Women’s Sports Foundation, the YWCA and the National Women’s Law Center -- all nonprofit organizations promoting female participation in sports. Among those attending were Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, Olympic basketball star Nikki McCray and tennis legend Billie Jean King, who founded the Women’s Sports Foundation in 1974.

Accepting the top award of the day, Moroccan track-and-field star Nawal El Moutawakel described herself as “one of the consequences of Title IX.” An athletic scholarship recipient from Iowa State, she was the first woman from a Muslim nation to win an Olympic medal, capturing the gold in the 400-meter hurdles in 1984.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Ark.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) then took to the podium to defend the law.

Daschle was one of six senators who signed a bipartisan letter to Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige earlier this month, urging him to “defend and strengthen the enforcement of current Title IX policies and regulations.”

Last week an advisory commission appointed by Paige recommended ways that the law could be clarified and enforced, prompting an outcry among some women’s rights supporters who would rather see the law maintained intact. Paige will receive the report later this month and decide which of the recommendations will be adopted.