CAMPUS

NCAA President Doesn’t Want You To Talk About Title IX

Eric Pearson over at Inside Higher Ed has a story on Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, trying to preemptively squelch criticism of Title IX. Universities will probably be cutting some men’s teams in coming years, and Brand wants you to know that it’s because of the economic downturn, not Title IX, so just shut about it, okay? From the article:

On November 21, Brand told USA Today, “My expectation is that over the next year or two we are going to see more cuts of men’s teams and so I am trying, frankly, to pre-empt the argument against Title IX … and dissuade universities from going public with this approach.”

Pearson goes on to illustrate how Brand has a long history of gagging Title IX complaints. If Title IX is so flawless, why the heavy-handed approach, Mr. Brand? Well, as Pearson discovers, Brand has some good role models:

But Brand found much more like-minded company during a trip he made a few weeks ago to China as a guest of their Ministry of Education. “As I talked with those both inside and outside the universities, there was one thing that … distinguished the current social milieu in America from that of China,” Brand wrote on his blog. “There was almost a complete lack of cynicism … a common attitude that I found remarkably refreshing. There was some willingness to disagree … with those in authority but it always occurred not with the kind of cynicism that takes any situation, even a very good one, and focuses on the negative.”

Why, those Chinese are just so gosh darn optimistic that they can’t find anything bad to say about their government! It’s too bad Brand is stuck over here in grumpy town USA, where everyone is a bunch of negative Nancies.