Excelling in sports has long been seen as a male prerogative, and in this area women remain far behind because of the structure of both amateur and professional sports in America. Newspaper coverage shows a prejudice for male teams over female teams, and many Americans may have only a vague idea of the extent of women's sports. The 1994 women's tournament of basketball was cited recently as a milestone for sexual equality in spite of the fact that it was largely ignored by the press:
Even so the 1994 women's tournament (which the University of North Carolina won in the final second of the final game on April 3rd) has been a milestone for sexual equality. For the first time, 64 women's teams the same number as there were for the men were granted tournament berths. Full equality in college sports has not yet arrived in the United States but it is coming closer, thanks to a dogged legal campaign by sportswomen angered by fewer choices and smaller budgets ("Sports Lib" 98).
One reason for this has been legal action, since Congress in 1972 passed a measure called "Title IX" as part of a legislative package that prohibited sexual discrimination in federally funded college programs. Still, full equality has proven elusive.
Institutions of higher education are obligated by law and by ideas of fairness to provide equal educational opportunity for both men and women, and meeting these legal and philosophical obligations in intercollegiate athletics requires a distribution of existing limited financial resources and the identification of new revenue sources in order to develop existing women's sports programs and to increase the number of such opportunities for female student-athletes. The legal obligation derives from Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which stats as follows:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to d...