" And there is a three-part test to determine of a university or college is in compliance, the AAAUW Web page explains: the first prong is based on the proportion of female students attending the institution compared with females participating in intercollegiate sports; prong #2 examines whether the school has a track record of expanding sports opportunities for women; the third prong: is the school adequately accommodating women"s athletic interests and abilities?

            

             Main Body of Literature and Assessment of Challenges to Title IX.

             Meantime, studies show that today, one out of three high school girls are playing sports on a school team. That is a very good thing, according to an article in the Journal of Gender, Social Policy & The Law (Brake, 2004): "Studies show that girls who compete in sports not only receive a physical benefit, but also benefit academically and socially," Brake explains. Girls playing sports have "higher self-esteem, less risk of depression," less likelihood of "engaging in high-risk behaviors," and also, those young women "perform better in school than girls who do not play sports," Blake"s article continues. .

             Moreover, engaging in vigorous athletic activities on a sports team – at the interscholastic and intercollegiate levels – gives girls and women "the opportunity to develop new relationships with their bodies, as a source of strength and learning." .

             Meantime, the many positives listed above notwithstanding, all is not well in the world of Title IX. "Like other social institutions, sport has been resilient in preserving male privilege in its deepest structures," Brake"s piece continues. Borrowing a phrase from Professor Reva Siegel called "preservation through transformation" – which means avoiding direct conflict with institutional shifts in ideology while maintaining "the underlying structure of inequality" by regrouping, according to Brake, "to preserve the central features of male privilege in sport.