78R4745 JLZ-D

By:  Shapleigh                                                  S.C.R. No. 13 



CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, When the U.S. Congress passed the Education 
Amendments of 1972, it included provisions, collectively known as 
Title IX, to ban sex discrimination in schools, whether it be in 
academics, athletics, or any other school-sanctioned endeavor; and
	WHEREAS, Title IX states "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 
education program or activity receiving Federal financial 
assistance"; and
	WHEREAS, In the 30 years since its passage, this landmark 
legislation has had far-reaching impact, affecting several 
generations of women, opening doors of opportunity that previously 
had been closed to them, and transforming significant aspects of 
American society in the process; and
	WHEREAS, Nowhere has this transformation been more dramatic 
than in the field of sports, as scores of new athletic programs were 
established by schools, colleges, and universities seeking 
compliance with the provisions of Title IX as a condition to their 
continued receipt of federal funds; and
	WHEREAS, Indicative of the explosive growth in the number of 
women's sports teams at the college level, the total number of 
women's teams increased by 66 percent between 1981 and 1999, with 
the General Accounting Office reporting the creation of more than 
800 new teams in women's soccer alone; and
	WHEREAS, The effect of creating so many opportunities for 
participation where previously there had been none was evident at 
the high school level as well; in 1971, before Title IX, fewer than 
300,000 girls participated in high school athletics; today, there 
are more than 2.7 million girls playing on high school sports teams; 
and
	WHEREAS, Despite these remarkable gains, questions have 
arisen regarding the effectiveness of the federal government's 
enforcement of Title IX provisions and its guidelines for 
compliance, while at the same time concerns have been voiced 
regarding unintended consequences of such enforcement; and
	WHEREAS, In June 2002, the U.S. secretary of education 
appointed a panel of sports professionals and educators to examine 
ways of strengthening enforcement of Title IX and expanding 
opportunities for participation that would ensure fairness for all 
college athletes; the secretary's Commission on Opportunity in 
Athletics also was asked to make recommendations on whether 
standards should be revised, and if so, how they should be revised; 
and
	WHEREAS, On January 30, 2003, after holding a series of town 
hall meetings across the nation to provide a forum for public 
discussion of the various issues and obtaining broad public input 
on the application of current federal standards, the commission 
approved proposals that would change the way schools, colleges, and 
universities are judged with regard to the opportunities they 
afford women to play sports; and
	WHEREAS, In particular, these proposals would ease the burden 
of proof for colleges and universities to show that they meet the 
requirements of any one of the three options under a three-part test 
established by the U.S. Department of Education in a policy 
interpretation issued in 1979; and
	WHEREAS, The net result of a less stringent burden of proof, 
however, would be that schools no longer would have to put forth the 
current level of effort to achieve or remain in compliance, and 
ultimately women may see a rollback of the dramatic gains made 
during three decades of progress; now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 78th Legislature of the State of Texas 
hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to 
protect the gains made by women in sports and support the continued 
enforcement of standards in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 
1972 that made those gains possible; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official 
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to 
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the 
senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the 
Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this 
resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a 
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.