Some Title IX news from our fearless law professors over at the Title IX blog.

If you follow the application/enforcement of T-9 at the college level, you'll know that the compliance records of universities and colleges has a lot to be desired. But they ain't got nothing on high schools.

The thing is, parents of the current crop of high school kids were, in many cases, the beneficiaries of Title IX. If you were a woman, you might have gotten a scholarship. If you were a man, you might have become aware of the inequities in the educational system.

So, when these parents see their daughter's athletic programs are marginalized, they tend to get cranky. Which is one reason you're seeing more T-9 cases at the high school level.

So back to the new news from the T-9 blog, which is actually old news:

...a year ago, the petitioned the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to "clarify" Title IX's application to by stating that the three-part test for measuring equity in participation does not apply to high school athletics. But earlier this year, OCR denied this petition, affirming the applicability of the three-part test to high schools.

Basically, it means high schools have to meet the same requirements as universities. So, you may ask, what exactly is "the three part test"?

The "three-part test" refers to a portion of the Department's Policy Interpretation, issued in 1979, that provides guidance on the application of Title IX to athletics.

It sets forth three options to determine whether an institution's intercollegiate athletic program provides nondiscriminatory participation opportunities for male and female athletes. A school may demonstrate compliance by meeting any one of the three parts:

1.) Whether the institution provides opportunities for participation in intercollegiate sports for male and female students in numbers that are substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or

2.) Whether the institution can show a history and continuing practice of program expansion that is demonstrably responsive to the developing interests and abilities of the members of the sex that is underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes; or

3.) Whether the institution can show that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program.

Hey, John? I'll give you a nickel if you can find the word "quota."