Letter from L. Delyte Morris, Associate Professor at Central State University, to President Gerald R. Ford Regarding the Implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972

3 GENERAL mb FA3 HU2-5 RE May 12, 1975 Dear Ms. Morris: Thank you for your recent letter to the President concerning the proposed Regulation for implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The President appreciates your interest and courtesy in sharing with him your views on this highly controversial matter. You may be sure that those views will receive careful consideration prior to his approval of the Title IX Regulation. Sincerely, Richard D. Parsons Associate Director & Counsel Domestic Council X Ms. L. Delyte Morris, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation Central State University Wilberforce, Ohio 45384 FORD i LIBRARY GERALD Central State University WILBERFORCE, OHIO 45384 R$-1 Dept. of Health, Physical Education and Recreation April 23, 1975 Gerald R. Ford President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President, I am writing with regard to your consideration of the revised guidelines for the implementa- tion of Title IX. My specific concern is with the opportunities afforded female students of schools and colleges for participation in athletics. You were an athlete, Mr. President. In your student days, you had the opportunity to know the thrill and pride of representing your school or college, the joy of "living in" a strong, well-skilled body, and of developing your skills to their full potential. Your development as an athlete was aided by your school's financial support, by the guidance of professional coaches and trainers, and by the encouragement of peers, teachers, administrators, and the public in general. In my student days, I also was an athlete; but I am also female. My team-mates and I were seldom coached. Our coach, when we had one, was an unpaid volunteer from the female faculty who rarely had the expertise to help us develop our skills. When we traveled to other schools to compete, we had to pay our own way. Our access to practice facilities was limited, our equipment usually that which had been cast-off by the men, and our use of conditioning-training facilities (training rooms, etc.) was impossible. Our accomplishments (and we did manage to have some positive ones) received little, if any, recognition on the campus. Until very recently, the above was the typical experience of the female college athlete in this country. Since the passage of Title IX, many schools have accorded their female students greater opportunity than ever before for real involvement in athletics; the situation is better than ever before, though' quality of equality" is not what it should be. As a university faculty member, I know that this has not been done out of a desire to right old wrongs, but rather because the possible loss of federal funds constituted a real and significant threat to the institutions. Now you are deliberating upon the revised guidelines ; I and many others were very dismayed to read that, as revised, the guidelines exclude all contact sports from those areas in which institutions must provide equal participation opportunity for students FORD & LIBRARY GERALD Central State University WILBERFORCE, OHIO 45384 of both sexes. Basketball is classified as a contact sport. If you give your approval to the present guidelines, many women's intercollegiate basketball teams will cease to exist, because their institutions will no longer support them. Have the more than 30, 000 college women who play basketball no right to be considered? At stake too are the competitive opportunities of the many thousands of women students who participate in other sports presently included in most collegei programs. Basket- ball is the "keystone" of women's intercollegiate sport; if it is forced out of existence, entire programs will die. Women athletes love their sport and exult in the emotional and physical release of hard striving on field and court, just as much as do men. Women athletes have been ignored, ridiculed, and neglected for generations; at last it seemed that a bright new day had come. If the "teeth" of Title IX, as regards equal opportunity in the athletic program in educational institutions are removed, that bright new day will shortly be only a memory. Please don't allow that to happen. Sincerely, J.Delife Minim L. Delyte Morris, Ph.D. Associate Professor BERALD FORD LIBRARY