At Off Wing, Eric takes the first crack at a story that hasn't yet reached the papers: a change in Title IX compliance norms that he calls an "earthquake." Conservatives have been pushing to soften Title IX for years, and it appears that they've finally won.

Last Friday afternoon, the DOE announced new rules for how a school can demonstrate compliance by showing that it is "fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex." To gauge how much interest women have in a particular sport, universities may rely on internal surveys.

And here's the kicker: "If the survey responses from students show insufficient interest in women's sports - or if students don't bother to answer at all - schools can presume they are in compliance."

So here's how it seems to work:

You're a school. The percentage of women playing sports is lower than the percentage of men, and you're tired of trying to expand opportunities.

You send out an email survey saying "are you interested in playing any of the following varsity sports?" Women who send it to the email trash count as "not interested." Even if lots of women take the time to respond and say they want to play sports, you can still do nothing so long as not too many of them express interest in the same sport. Even if lots of women express interest in some particular sport, you can still do nothing if you have a reasonable belief that it would be too hard to add that sport at your school.

Your decision is presumed correct, and it can only be overturned if women can show "direct and very persuasive evidence of unmet interest sufficient to sustain a varsity team."

Under this new system of rules, it will be easier for schools to maintain compliance and to avoid creating new opportunities for women in athletics.

How did this all happen? Did this new regime just spring out of Zeus's head -- fully formed and armored, without warning -- last Friday?

No. In fact, it all sounds vaguely familiar. That's probably because we already had this debate two years ago.

During his first term, President Bush and then-Secretary Paige appointed a commission to examine issues related to Title IX. The commission made some recommendations, including numbers 18 and 19, which would have allowed compliance by surveys.

Members Donna de Varona and Julie Foudy, however, objected to the majority's recommendations on 18 and 19. Critics worried that the commission's proposal would seriously undermine the goals of Title IX. The resulting public outcry caused Bush and Paige to drop the matter.

As that crazy old coot Phyllis Schlafly said:

Bush had the chance to remedy this nonsense when he appointed a commission to study the problem. But he put feminists on the commission, and then chickened out because the commission's report was not unanimous and allowed the proportionality rule to remain.

But that coot was wrong. Bush didn't chicken out. He just did the smart political thing: he waited until public attention was elsewhere, and slipped in the change when no one was looking. And in a strategy borrowed from the West Wing, he buried the story by releasing it on a Friday afternoon.

I don't know enough about the nuances of Title IX law to know whether Eric is correct that this is a huge change. Reading the regs, it sounds like the DOE has erected a whole series of hurdles, presumptions, and burdens that will leave Title IX largely toothless. Then again, I don't know enough about what the law was before last week to know if it's truly a huge change. The legal story is obscure to me.

The political story, on the other hand, is clear enough.

Act One: in an atmosphere of candor and open debate, conservatives push for a change but end up rebuffed by public pressure. Act Two: conservatives bide their time, wait till everyone has forgotten all about the issue, and then make the change quietly -- without debate, without fanfare, without a press release. They successfully bury the story. Several days pass before anyone even knows that a change has been made.

Act Three has yet to be written.

My guess: a few strongly-worded columns are published in a few papers, a few strongly-worded speeches are given in Congress, a few strongly-worded press releases are issued by women's groups... all to no effect. Screen fades to black as Jim McCarthy, Phyllis Schlafly, Ann Coulter, and various college wrestling coaches share a glass of champagne in a K Street bar to celebrate their long-awaited victory.

Related posts:
1. Tuesday's news: bring on the debate.
2. Wednesday's news: is it really a change?
3. Thursday's news: Christine Brennan, Hilary Clinton, and the APA.
4. Do surveys simply reify discrimination?
5. A brief history of the three-prong test.