Where The Boys Are
Year after year I go to league and conference scholar-athlete awards banquets
and see girls outnumber boys by wide margins: 54 girls to 33 boys honored at
a March event in mid-Michigan is typical of what has occurred many places over
many years.
Year after year, I attend senior honors programs and see girls outnumber boys:
147 awards to girls versus 70 awards to boys honored at a May event in mid-Michigan
is typical.
It is possible, perhaps likely, that a generation of young males is at risk.
Is it possible for us to do anything about it?
Why is there so much talk about girls and sports, and so little talk about boys
and non-athletic activities, which have done every bit as much for me and my
sons as sports?
Why do we have a federal agency – the Office for Civil Rights –
making some colleges and schools turn themselves upside down and inside out,
including eliminating sports teams for males, in order to provide – regardless
of demonstrated interest – not only equal numbers of male and female athletes,
but also the same percentage of athletic opportunities for females as there
are females enrolled in the institution – proportionality, it's called
– while OCR is doing little or nothing for males in speech, music, debate
or drama?
Look at these figures from the National Federation of State High School Associations:
• 68.3% of vocal music participants are girls.
• 66.4% of participants in group interpretation speech activities are
girls.
• 63.3% of participants in individual speech events are girls.
• 62.7% of orchestra members are girls.
• 61% of dramatics participants are girls.
Where is the outrage? Where are the bureaucrats to investigate this discrimination,
if that's what it is? By every other measure but sports, boys are under-represented
in school activities. And worse, boys are over-represented in academic failures,
dropouts, discipline problems, drug use and crime statistics. Where's the remedial
action?
Where's the affirmative action? Where are the quotas?
If it is unfair for schools to provide athletic opportunities that are not proportionate
to the enrollment of girls in schools – even when girls may not have expressed
similar interests in sports – then it's unfair for schools to provide
opportunities for boys in non-athletic activities that are not in proportion
to the percentage of boys enrolled in those schools, regardless of boys' interests.
Proportionality is a deeply flawed principle for enforcing Title IX, but it's
made even worse when the enforcers use it selectively, aiming at high-profile
sports rather than all of the educational activities of schools.
We are in desperate need of advocates for all of our students in all of our
programs.
Want to do something to curb juvenile delinquency and all kinds of abusive behavior
by boys? Devote as much brain power and money to advocating opportunity for
boys in non-athletic activities as we devote to girls in sports.
That would be a good start.