Guided by a misinformed understanding of equity and under a deceiving banner of "fairness," a small but powerful group of people are seeking to undermine Title IX. In so doing, they will recreate the very inequalities that Title IX was designed to overcome. The locus of this initial assault on the comprehensive coverage protecting women and girls from sex discrimination in education concerns access to equality in sports.

Title IX is the most symbolic and practical piece of legislation directly related to women and girls' education, a broad legislative intervention that aims to create a fair chance for women and girls across color and class in almost all aspects of their education from kindergarten through college. To weaken it is to undermine that proclaimed advocacy for equality.

The organized attempts to water down Title IX are part of a larger organized effort to roll back civil rights in general and the landmark protective legislation passed in the 1960s and 1970s to uproot the deeply embedded systems and practices of race and sex discrimination.

Title IX has opened up greater opportunities for women and girls across racial and income groups to reap the benefits of playing sports, which research suggests can lead to greater self-esteem, leadership, and access to financial scholarships.

Since Title IX was passed, the involvement of women in sports has increased by 800%. Still, girls today are twice as likely as boys to be inactive. Research tells us that participation in sport contributes to girls' physical and emotional health and makes girls less likely to engage in high-risk behavior, such as drinking and smoking.

The disparities in funding faced by men's minor sports are not the result of Title IX or women getting an undue share of the athletic resources, but of how an institution chooses to allocate its resources. The percentage of men participating in sports has increased, not decreased, since Title IX was passed, and in Division I sports, for every dollar spent on athletics, men receive 65 cents and women only 35 cents.

Title IX is about more than sports. It is about equal access to education, to career advancement and opportunities, to a harassment free learning environment, to equal access to study in science, math, engineering, and computer science, and to opportunities for vocational education training in high wage jobs.

Gender equity for students, faculty, staff, and administrators is not yet complete. Across fields and levels, women advance more slowly and earn less money than men. The 20% tenure gap between women and men has not closed in three decades. Men and women of color are underrepresented on the faculty and in the student body. Sexual harassment haunts women's educational and job environments.

There are tangible benefits to society of tapping all available talent whether for sports, combating disease, designing foreign policy, or creating sustainable development programs. Title IX is a tool to achieve that development of women's talents.

We do not need to water down Title IX or roll back affirmative action and other programs that seek to widen democratic opportunities. Instead we need to expand and enforce what laws we already have. We dare not abandon this nation's historic and hard-won struggle for greater access to equal opportunities.

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