Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?
I'm pretty sure Title 9 requires equal numbers of athletes for each sex in all sports, not the number of sports. It also does not mandate that coaches' pay be equal; for the best example look at men's and women's basketball. Coach Miller has probably come in the closest in terms of matching her male counterpart, but if I recall correctly Sandelin makes approximately $30k-$40k more.
Neither is correct. Title IX doesn't have any specific benchmarks that must be met. Instead, it mandates that men and women must have substantially equivalent access to opportunities. The Departments of Education and Justice will monitor that and have a three part test that they use to evaluate an institution's compliance:
1) The participation opportunities are substantially proportionate to the makeup of the student body. This includes, but is not limited to, looking at whether the number of athletes for each sex are balanced with regards to the proportions within the student body. It also looks at the adequacy of facilities, travel conditions, what have you. It basically requires treating the male and female athletes equivalently.
2) Failing that, is the institution making progress towards equal opportunities for the underrepresented gender.
3) Failing that, are the demands of the underrepresented gender being adequately met? Basically, if you can't show compliance with the first or second part, you'd better hope that you don't have a serious complaint.
Note that the opportunities for the students are what is important here, not the coaches. Paying widely disparate salaries to the coaches of men's and women's teams is not, and cannot be, a direct violation of Title IX. What it could be is a piece of evidence to suggest that female athletes are not receiving the same opportunities as their male counterparts because the institution is not paying a high enough salary to attract truly qualified candidates. I think it's highly unlikely that UMD would be in any trouble in that regard even if the new coach is paid a third of what Miller is.
Because I hate you all, here is a link to
Title 34, Section 106 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is where the rules for implementing Title IX of the Education Acts of 1972 are listed.