Conclusion

Sports play such a large role in social development, as well as promote self-esteem and learning abilities, (Oliphant, 1977). Women had been deprived of these rights in social settings such as schools that state they are giving equity to the utmost extent, such as Trinity. Oliphant also asserts that sports, which allow for so much social and mental advancements, also set up participants to be more employable (Oliphant, 1997). By the slow progress in this area following the establishment of Title IX in 1972, it can be seen that equality was not shown towards women enrolled in Trinity in the past, especially around this time. While many might make the argument that Trinity is a private school and because of this is not required to provide the same opportunities to women under this law due to the lack of federal funds being allotted to the athletic department, but according to the legislature, if Trinity received any money at all from the government, even unrelated to the athletic department, they are still required to abide by these laws to the fullest extent, even within sports (Oliphant, 1977). It is clear that this was not the goal of the athletic department, as seen through their intensely negative views of the financial allocations towards female teams, even when the allocations were less than a third of that of the men’s teams (Pasely, 1977). It’s a disappointment to see that after so long of women taking an inferior role in all social aspects, that Trinity could not make certain accommodations to correct this imbalance. I would make the argument that even today, though Trinity has extremely high performing female sports teams, that there is still an imbalance of representation of female athletes on campus. From personal experience, I worked tirelessly to get funding for not even a varsity female lacrosse team, but a club team and was denied two years in a row. On the other hand, the men’s lacrosse has been in existence since at least 1995, when the first report of their win appeared in the Trinitonian (Trotter, 1995), as is still in existence today. It is clear the regarding sports on Trinity’s campus, there was and might still be a discrepancy in opportunities for the female athletes, which supports the hypothesis of the inferiority of female athletes on Trinity campus.
Progress is slow in the area of equal opportunities within athletics, as seen through the study of the effects of Title IX on Trinity campus, where equality is still of question. It has been shown how important sports are for the development at an early age, and inequality within this arena can lead to unequal opportunities in other areas, such as employment (Oliphant, 1977). For these reasons, along with logical moral thought, the imbalance of inferior views of women within this nation, historically and today, needs to be righted and aspects within education, especially athletics, need to accommodate the righting of this imbalance for the equity of opportunities for women, or at least steps in the right direction. There has been a history of the women of this campus being in an inferior position in comparison to the men of this campus, and Title IX allowed for the first steps towards equity at Trinity and within its athletics. This was a necessary law to be passed and there is still much work to be done within the department on campus regarding the equity of female teams, but Title IX created the progress that is now a stepping stone for female athletes at Trinity University.