Amy Cohen v. Brown University

In this watershed case, defendants-appellants Brown University, Vartan Gregorian, and David Roach appeal from the district court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction ordering Brown to reinstate its women’s gymnastics and volleyball programs to full intercollegiate varsity status pending the resolution of a Title IX claim. 1 See Cohen v. Brown Univ., 809 F.Supp. 978 (D.R.I.1992). After mapping Title IX’s rugged legal terrain and cutting a passable swath through the factual thicket that overspreads the parties’ arguments, we affirm.

I. BROWN ATHLETICS: AN OVERVIEW

College athletics, particularly in the realm of football and basketball, has traditionally occupied a prominent role in American sports and American society. For college students, athletics offers an opportunity to exacuate leadership skills, learn teamwork, build self-confidence, and perfect self-discipline. In addition, for many student-athletes, physical skills are a passport to college admissions and scholarships, allowing them to attend otherwise inaccessible schools. These opportunities, and the lessons learned on the playing fields, are invaluable in attaining career and life successes in and out of professional sports.

The highway of opportunity runs in both directions. Not only student-athletes, but universities, too, benefit from the magic of intercollegiate sports. Successful teams generate television revenues and gate receipts which often fund significant percent *892 ages of a university’s overall athletic program, offering students the opportunity to partake of sports that are not financially self-sustaining. Even those institutions whose teams do not fill the grandstands of cavernous stadiums or attract national television exposure benefit from increased student and alumni cohesion and the support it engenders. Thus, universities nurture the legends, great or small, inhering in their athletic past, polishing the hardware that adorns field-house trophy cases and reliving heroic exploits in the pages of alumni magazines.

In these terms, Brown will never be confused with Notre Dame or the more muscular members of the Big Ten. Although its football team did play in the 1916 Rose Bowl and its men’s basketball team won the Ivy League championship as recently as 1986, Brown’s athletic program has only occasionally achieved national prominence or, for that matter, enjoyed sustained success. 2 Moreover, at Brown, as at most schools, women are a relatively inconspicuous part of the storied athletic past. Historically, colleges limited athletics to the male sphere, leaving those few women’s teams that sprouted to scrounge for resources.

The absence of women’s athletics at Brown was, until 1970, an ineluctable consequence of the absence of women; Brown sponsored a women’s college — Pembroke— but did not itself admit women. In 1971, Brown subsumed Pembroke. Brown promptly upgraded Pembroke’s rather primitive athletic offerings so that by 1977 there were fourteen women’s varsity teams. In subsequent years, Brown added only one distaff team: winter track. Hence, in the 1991-92 academic year, Brown fielded fifteen women’s varsity teams — one fewer than the number of men’s varsity teams.

II. THE PLAINTIFF CLASS

In the spring of 1991, Brown announced that it, like many other schools, was in a financial bind, and that, as a belt-tightening measure, it planned to drop four sports from its intercollegiate varsity athletic roster: women’s volleyball and gymnastics, men’s golf and water polo. The University permitted the teams to continue playing as “intercollegiate clubs,” a status that allowed them to compete against varsity teams from other colleges, 3 but cut off financial subsidies and support services routinely available to varsity teams (e.g., salaried coaches, access to prime facilities, preferred practice time, medical trainers, clerical assistance, office support, admission preferences, and the like). Brown estimated that eliminating these four varsity teams would save $77,813 per annum, broken down as follows: women’s volleyball, $37,127; women’s gymnastics, $24,901; men’s water polo, $9,250; men’s golf, $6,545.

Before the cuts, Brown athletics offered an aggregate of 328 varsity slots for female athletes and 566 varsity slots for male athletes. Thus, women had 36.7% of the athletic opportunities and men 63.3%. Abolishing the four varsity teams took substantially more dollars from the women’s athletic budget than from the men’s budget, but did not materially affect the athletic opportunity ratios; women retained 36.6% of the opportunities and men 63.4%. At that time (and for a number of years prior thereto), Brown’s student body comprised approximately 52% men and 48% women.

Following Brown’s announcement of the cutbacks, disappointed members of the women’s volleyball and gymnastics teams brought suit. They proceeded on an implied cause of action under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688 (1988). See Franklin v. Gwinnett County Pub. Sch., — U.S. *893 -, -, 112 S.Ct. 1028, 1032, 117 L.Ed.2d 208 (1992) (recognizing implied private right of action under Title IX); Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 717, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1968, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (same); see also Cannon, 441 U.S. at 687 n. 8, 99 S.Ct. at 1952 n. 8 (holding that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not a prerequisite to a Title IX suit). The plaintiffs charged that Brown’s athletic arrangements violated Title IX’s ban on gender-based discrimination, a violation that was allegedly exacerbated by Brown’s decision to devalue the two women’s programs without first making sufficient reductions in men’s activities or, in the alternative, adding other women’s teams to compensate for the loss.

On plaintiffs’ motion, the district court certified a class of “all present and future Brown University women students and potential students who participate, seek to participate, and/or are deterred from participating in intercollegiate athletics funded by Brown.” And, after hearing fourteen days of testimony from twenty witnesses, the judge granted a preliminary injunction requiring Brown to reinstate the two women’s teams pending the outcome of a full trial on the merits. See Cohen, 809 P.Supp. at 1001. We stayed execution of the order and expedited Brown’s appeal.

III. TITLE IX AND COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

Title IX prohibits gender-based discrimination by educational institutions receiving federal financial support — in practice, the vast majority of all accredited colleges and universities. The statute sketches wide policy lines, leaving the details to regulating agencies. Since this appeal demands that we invade terra incognita, 4 we carefully recount the developments leading to the present version of Title IX and then examine the pertinent statutory and regulatory language.

A. Scope of Title IX.

At its inception, the broad proscriptive language of Title IX caused considerable consternation in the academic world. The academy’s anxiety chiefly centered around identifying which individual programs, particularly in terms of athletics, might come within the scope of the discrimination provision, and, relatedly, how the government would determine compliance. The gridiron fueled these concerns: for many schools, the men’s football budget far exceeded that of any other sport, and men’s athletics as a whole received the lion’s share of dedicated resources — a share that, typically, was vastly disproportionate to the percentage of men in the student body.

Part of the confusion about the scope of Title IX’s coverage and the acceptable avenues of compliance arose from the absence of secondary legislative materials. Congress included no committee report with the final bill and there were apparently only two mentions of intercollegiate athletics during the congressional debate. See 118 Cong.Rec. 5,807 (1972) (statement of Sen. Bayh on privacy in athletic facilities); 117 Cong.Rec. 30,407 (1971) (statement of Sen. Bayh noting that proposed Title IX will not require gender-blended football teams). Nevertheless, under congressional direction to implement Title IX, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) promulgated regulations in 1975 which included specific provisions for college athletics. Four years later, HEW’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) added another layer of regulatory exegesis when, after notice and comment, it published a “Policy Interpretation” that offered a more de *894 tailed measure of equal athletic opportunity-

In 1984, the Supreme Court radically altered the contemporary reading of Title IX. The Court held that Title IX was “program-specific,” so that its tenets applied only to the program(s) which actually received federal funds and not to the rest of the university. Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555, 574, 104 S.Ct. 1211, 1221, 79 L.Ed.2d 516 (1984). Because few athletic departments are direct recipients of federal funds — most federal money for universities is channelled through financial aid offices or invested directly in research grants— Grove City cabined Title IX and placed virtually all collegiate athletic programs beyond its reach. 5

In response to Grove City, Congress scrapped the program-specific approach and reinstated an institution-wide application of Title IX by passing the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, 20 U.S.C. § 1687 (1988). The Restoration Act required that if any arm of an educational institution received federal funds, the institution as a whole must comply with Title IX’s provisions. See id.; see also S.Rep. No. 64, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 4 (1988), reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3, 6 (explaining that Congress wanted to prohibit discrimination throughout an institution if the institution received any federal funds). Although the Restoration Act does not specifically mention sports, the record of the floor debate leaves little doubt that the enactment was aimed, in part, at creating a more level playing field for female athletes. See, e.g., 130 Cong.Rec. S12,642 (daily ed. Oct. 2, 1984) (statement of Sen. Byrd decrying past discrimination against female athletes); 130 Cong.Rec. S11,253 (daily ed. Sept. 17, 1984) (statement of Sen. Hatch regarding importance of Title IX to ensuring development of women athletes); 130 Cong.Rec. S2,267 (daily ed. Mar. 2, 1984) (statement of Sen. Riegle noting extensive evidence of sex discrimination in education and athletics).

The appellants do not challenge the district court’s finding that, under existing law, Brown’s athletic department is subject to Title IX. Accordingly, we devote the remainder of Part III to deterrating the meaning of Title IX, looking first at the statute and then at the regulations.

B. Statutory Framework.

Title IX, like the Restoration Act, does not explicitly treat college athletics. 6 Rather, the statute’s heart is a broad prohibition of gender-based discrimination in all programmatic aspects of educational institutions:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance....

20 U.S.C. § 1681(a) (1988). After listing a number of exempt organizations, section 1681 makes clear that, while Title IX prohibits discrimination, it does not mandate strict numerical equality between the gender balance of a college’s athletic program and the gender balance of its student body. Thus, section 1681(a) shall not

be interpreted to require any educational institution to grant preferential or disparate treatment to the members of one sex on account of an imbalance which may exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of that sex participating in or receiving the benefits of any federally supported program or activity, in comparison with the total number or percentage of persons of that sex in any community, State, section, or other area: Provided, That this subsec *895 tion shall not be construed to prevent the consideration in any hearing or proceeding under this chapter of statistical evidence tending to show that such an imbalance exists with respect to the participation in, or receipt of the benefits of, any such program or activity by the members of one sex.

20 U.S.C. § 1681(b) (1988). Put another way, a court assessing Title IX compliance may not find a violation solely because there is a disparity between the gender composition of an educational institution’s student constituency, on the one hand, and its athletic programs, on the other hand.

That is not to say, however, that evidence of such a disparity is irrelevant. Quite the contrary: under the proviso contained in section 1681(b), a Title IX plaintiff in an athletic discrimination suit must accompany statistical evidence of disparate impact with some further evidence of discrimination, such as unmet need amongst the members of the disadvantaged gender.

C. Regulatory Framework.

As we mentioned above, the Secretary of HEW, following Congress’s instructions, promulgated regulations implementing Title IX in the pre-Grove City era. See 40 Fed.Reg. 24,128 (1975). Thereafter, in 1979, Congress split HEW into the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Education (DED). See 20 U.S.C. §§ 3401-3510 (1988). In a wonderful example of bureaucratic muddle, the existing Title IX regulations were left within HHS’s arsenal while, at the same time, DED replicated them as part of its own regulatory armamentarium. Compare 45 C.F.R. § 86 (1992) (HHS regulations) with 34 C.F.R. § 106 (1992) (DED regulations). Both sets of regulations were still in effect when the Restoration Act passed. They are identical, save only for changes in nomenclature reflecting the reorganization of the federal bureaucracy.

In short, like pretenders to the emirate of a deceased sheik, both HHS and DED lay an hereditary claim to this oasis which arises from the regulatory desert, asserting authority to enforce Title IX. Nevertheless, DED is the principle locus of ongoing enforcement activity. See 20 U.S.C. § 3441(a)(1) (transferring all education functions of HEW to DED); see also 20 U.S.C. § 3441(a)(3) (transferring education-related OCR work to DED). Therefore, like the parties, we treat DED, acting through its OCR, as the administrative agency charged with administering Title IX. 7

Recognizing the agency’s role has important practical and legal consequences. Although DED is not a party to this appeal, we must accord its interpretation of Title IX appreciable deference. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984); see also Udall v. Tallman, 380 U.S. 1, 16, 85 S.Ct. 792, 801, 13 L.Ed.2d 616 (1965) (noting that the Supreme Court “gives great deference to the interpretation given the statute by the officers or agency charged with its administration”). The degree of deference is particularly high in Title IX cases because Congress explicitly delegated to the agency the task of prescribing standards for athletic programs under Title IX. See Pub.L. No. 93-380, § 844, 88 Stat. 612 (1974); see also Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844, 104 S.Ct. at 2782 (holding that where Congress has explicitly delegated responsibility to an agency, the regulation deserves “controlling weight”); Batterton v. Francis, 432 U.S. 416, 425, 97 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 53 L.Ed.2d 448 (1977); Alvarez-Flores v. INS, 909 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1990).

It is against this backdrop that we scrutinize the regulations and the Policy Interpretation.

1. The Regulations. DED’s regulations begin by detailing Title IX’s application to college athletics. 8 The regulations also rec *896 ognize, however, that an athletic program may consist of gender-segregated teams as long as one of two conditions is met: either the sport in which the team competes is a contact sport or the institution offers comparable teams in the sport to both genders. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b).

Finally, whether teams are segregated by sex or not, the school must provide gender-blind equality of opportunity to its student body. The regulations offer a nonexclusive compendium of ten factors which OCR will consider in assessing compliance with this mandate:

(1) Whether the selection of sports and levels of competition effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of members of both sexes;

(2) The provision of equipment and supplies;

(3) Scheduling of games and practice time;

(4) Travel and per diem allowance;

(5) Opportunity to receive coaching and academic tutoring;

(6) Assignment and compensation of coaches and tutors;-

(7) Provision of locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities;

(8) Provision of medical and training facilities and services;

(9) Provision of housing and dining facilities and services;

(10) Publicity.

34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c) (1992). 9 The district court rested its preliminary injunction on the first of these ten areas of inquiry: Brown’s failure effectively to accommodate the interests and abilities of female students in the selection and level of sports. See Cohen, 809 F.Supp. at 994. Hence, this area is the most critical in terms of evaluating the charges against Brown (although it is also the most difficult to measure).

2. The Policy Interpretation. In the three years next following the initial issuance of the regulations, HEW received over one hundred discrimination complaints involving more than fifty schools. In order to encourage self-policing and thereby winnow complaints, HEW proposed a Policy Interpretation. See 43 Fed.Reg. 58,070 (1978). It then promulgated the Policy Interpretation in final form, see 44 Fed.Reg. 71,413 (1979), a matter of months before the effective date of the statute through which Congress, emulating King Solomon, split HEW. The parties are in agreement that, at DED’s birth, it clutched the Policy Interpretation, and, as a practical matter, that appears to be the case. 10 See, e.g., DED, Title IX Athletics Investigator’s Manual 1, 2 (1990) (Manual); see also Complaint Letter from Regional Civil Rights Director, DED, to Dr. Martin Massengale, Chancellor, Univ. of Nebraska (July 10, 1989) (noting that DED “ha[s] followed the directions provided in the Policy Interpretation”); Complaint Letter from Regional Civil Rights Director, DED, to Dr. Charles A. Walker, Chancellor, Univ. of Arkansas (Sept. 1, 1989) (same). Although we can find no record that DED formally adopted the Policy Interpretation, we see no point to splitting the hair, particularly where the parties have not asked us to do so. Because this document is a considered interpretation of the regulation, we cede it sub *897 stantial deference. See Martin v. OSHRC, 499 U.S. 144,-, 111 S.Ct. 1171, 1175-76, 113 L.Ed.2d 117 (1991); Gardebring v. Jenkins, 485 U.S. 415, 430, 108 S.Ct. 1306, 1314, 99 L.Ed.2d 515 (1988).

In line with the Supreme Court’s direction that, “if we are to give [Title IX] the scope that its origins dictate, we must accord it a sweep as broad as its language,” North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 521, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 1918, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982) (quoting United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 801, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 1160, 16 L.Ed.2d 267 (1966)) (collecting eases) (brackets in original), the Policy Interpretation limns three major areas of regulatory compliance: 11 “Athletic Financial Assistance (Scholarships),” see 34 C.F.R. § 106.37(c); “Equivalence in Other Athletic Benefits and Opportunities,” see 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(2)-(10); and “Effective Accommodation of Student Interests and Abilities,” see 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(1). The court below, see Cohen, 809 F.Supp. at 989, and a number of other district courts, see, e.g., Roberts v. Colorado State Univ., 814 F.Supp. 1507, 1510-11 (D.Colo.1993); Favia v. Indiana Univ. of Pa., 812 F.Supp. 578, 584-85 (W.D.Pa.1993), have adopted this formulation and ruled that a university violates Title IX if it ineffectively accommodates student interests and abilities regardless of its performance in other Title IX areas.

Equal opportunity to participate lies at the core of Title IX’s purpose. Because the third compliance area delineates this heartland, we agree with the district courts that have so ruled and hold that, with regard to the effective accommodation of students’ interests and abilities, an institution can violate Title IX even if it meets the “financial assistance” and “athletic equivalence” standards. In other words, an institution that offers women a smaller number of athletic opportunities than the statute requires may not rectify that violation simply by lavishing more resources on those women or achieving equivalence in other respects. 12

3. Measuring Effective Accommodation, The parties agree that the third compliance area is the field on which this appeal must be fought. In surveying the dimensions of this battleground, that is, whether an athletic program effectively accommodates students’ interests and abilities, the Policy Interpretation maps a trinitarian model under which the university must meet at least one of three benchmarks:

(1) Whether intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or

(2) Where the members of one sex have been and are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, whether the institution can show a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interest and abilities of the members of that sex; or

(3) Where the members of one sex are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, and the institution cannot show a continuing practice of program expansion such as that cited above, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program.

44 Fed.Reg. at 71,418. The first benchmark furnishes a safe harbor for those institutions that have distributed athletic opportunities in numbers “substantially proportionate” to the gender composition of their student bodies. Thus, a university which does not wish to engage in extensive *898 compliance analysis may stay on the sunny side of Title IX simply by maintaining gender parity between its student body and its athletic lineup.

The second and third parts of the accommodation test recognize that there are circumstances under which, as a practical matter, something short of this proportionality is a satisfactory proxy for gender balance. For example, so long as a university is continually expanding athletic opportunities in an ongoing effort to meet the needs of the underrepresented gender, and persists in this approach as interest and ability levels in its student body and secondary feeder schools rise, benchmark two is satisfied and Title IX does not require that the university leap to complete gender parity in a single bound. Or, if a school has a student body in which one sex is demonstrably less interested in athletics, Title IX does not require that the school create teams for, or rain money upon, otherwise disinterested students; rather, the third benchmark is satisfied if the underrepresented sex’s discernible interests are fully and effectively accommodated. 13

It seems unlikely, even in this day and age, that the athletic establishments of many coeducational universities reflect the gender balance of their student bodies. 14 Similarly, the recent boom in Title IX suits suggests that, in an era of fiscal austerity, few universities are prone to expand athletic opportunities. It is not surprising, then, that schools more often than not attempt to manage the rigors of Title IX by satisfying the interests and abilities of the underrepresented gender, that is, by meeting the third benchmark of the accommodation test. Yet, this benchmark sets a high standard: it demands not merely some accommodation, but full and effective accommodation. If there is sufficient interest and ability among members of the statistically underrepresented gender, not slaked by existing programs, an institution necessarily fails this prong of the test.

Although the full-and-effective-accommodation standard is high, it is not absolute. Even when male athletic opportunities outnumber female athletic opportunities, and the university has not met the first benchmark (substantial statistical proportionality) or the second benchmark (continuing program expansion) of the accommodation test, the mere fact that there are some female students interested in a sport does not ipso facto require the school to provide a varsity team in order to comply with the third benchmark. Rather, the institution can satisfy the third benchmark by ensuring participatory opportunities at the intercollegiate level when, and to the extent that, there is “sufficient interest and ability among the members of the excluded sex to sustain a viable team and a reasonable expectation of intercollegiate competition for that team_” 44 Fed.Reg. at 71,418. Staying on top of the problem is not sport for the short-winded: the institution must remain vigilant, “upgrading the competitive opportunities available to the historically disadvantaged sex as warranted by developing abilities among the athletes of that sex,” id., until the opportunities for, and levels of, competition are equivalent by gender. 15

*899 Brown argues that DED’s Policy Interpretation, construed as we have just outlined, goes so far afield that it countervails the enabling legislation. Brown suggests that, to the extent students’ interests in athletics are disproportionate by gender, colleges should be allowed to meet those interests incompletely as long as the school’s response is in direct proportion to the comparative levels of interest. Put bluntly, Brown reads the “full” out of the duty to accommodate “fully and effectively.” It argues instead that an institution satisfactorily accommodates female athletes if it allocates athletic opportunities to women in accordance with the ratio of interested and able women to interested and able men, regardless of the number of unserved women or the percentage of the student body that they comprise.

Because this is mountainous terrain, an example may serve to clarify the distinction between Brown’s proposal and our understanding of the law. Suppose a university (Oooh U.) has a student body consisting of 1,000 men and 1,000 women, a one to one ratio. If 500 men and 250 women are able and interested athletes, the ratio of interested men to interested women is two to one. Brown takes the position that both the actual gender composition of the student body and whether there is unmet interest among the underrepresented gender are irrelevant; in order to satisfy the third benchmark, Oooh U. must only provide athletic opportunities in line with the two to one interested athlete ratio, say, 100 slots for men and 50 slots for women. Under this view, the interest of 200 women would be unmet — but there would be no Title IX violation.

We think that Brown’s perception of the Title IX universe is myopic. The fact that the overrepresented gender is less than fully accommodated will not, in and of itself, excuse a shortfall in the provision of opportunities for the underrepresented gender. Rather, the law requires that, in the absence of continuing program expansion (benchmark two), schools either meet benchmark one by providing athletic opportunities in proportion to the gender composition of the student body (in Oooh U.’s case, a roughly equal number of slots for men and women, as the student body is equally divided), or meet benchmark three by fully accommodating interested athletes among the underrepresented sex (providing, at Oooh U., 250 slots for women). 16

In the final analysis, Brown’s view is wrong on two scores. It is wrong as a matter of law, for DED’s Policy Interpretation, which requires full accommodation of the underrepresented gender, draws its essence from the statute. Whether Brown’s concept might be thought more attractive, or whether we, if writing on a pristine page, would craft the regulation in a manner different than the agency, are not very important considerations. Because the agency’s rendition stands upon a plausible, if not inevitable, reading of Title IX, we are obligated to enforce the regulation according to its tenor. See Chevron, 467 U.S. at 848 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 2782 n. 11 (holding that a “court need not conclude that the agency construction was the only one it permissibly could have adopted to uphold [it]”) (collecting cases); Massachusetts v. Secretary of Agric., 984 F.2d 514, 522 (1st Cir.1993) (similar).

Brown’s reading of Title IX is legally flawed for yet another reason. It proceeds from the premise that the agency’s third benchmark countervails Title IX. But, this particular imprecation of the third benchmark overlooks the accommodation test’s general purpose: to determine whether a student has been “excluded from partic *900 ipation in, [or] denied the benefits of” an athletic program “on the basis of sex... 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). While any single element of this tripartite test, in isolation, might not achieve the goal set by the statute, the test as a whole is reasonably constructed to implement the statute. No more is exigible. See Chemical Mfrs. Ass’n v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 470 U.S. 116, 125, 105 S.Ct. 1102, 1107, 84 L.Ed.2d 90 (1985).

As it happens, Brown’s view is also poor policy for, in the long run, a rule such as Brown advances would likely make it more difficult for colleges to ensure that they have complied with Title IX. Given that the survey of interests and abilities would begin under circumstances where men’s athletic teams have a considerable head start, such a rule would almost certainly blunt the exhortation that schools should "take into account the nationally increasing levels of women’s interests and abilities” and avoid “disadvantaging] members of an underrepresented sex_” 44 Fed.Reg. at 71,417.

Brown’s proposal would also aggravate the quantification problems that are inevitably bound up with Title IX. Student plaintiffs, who carry the burden of proof on this issue, as well as universities monitoring self-compliance, would be required to assess the level of interest in both the male and female student populations and determine comparatively how completely the university was serving the interests of each sex. By contrast, as we read the accommodation test’s third benchmark, it requires a relatively simple assessment of whether there is unmet need in the underrepresented gender that rises to a level sufficient to warrant a new team or the upgrading of an existing team. We think the simpler reading is far more serviceable.

Furthermore, by moving away from OCR’s third benchmark, which focuses on the levels of interest and ability extant in the student body, Brown’s theory invites thorny questions as to the appropriate survey population, whether from the university, typical feeder schools, or the regional community. In that way, Brown’s proposal would do little more than overcomplicate an already complex equation.

We will not paint the lily. Brown’s approach cannot withstand scrutiny on either legal or policy grounds. We conclude that DED’s Policy Interpretation means exactly what it says. This plain meaning is a proper, permissible rendition of the statute.

IV. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE

We turn now to a series of case-specific issues, starting with Brown’s constitutional challenge to the statutory scheme.

A. Equal Protection.

Brown asseverates that if the third part of the accommodation test is read as OCR wrote it — to require full and effective accommodation of the underrepresented gender — the test violates the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. We think not.

Brown assumes that full and effective accommodation disadvantages male athletes. 17 While it might well be that more men than women at Brown are currently interested in sports, Brown points to no evidence in the record that men are any more likely to engage in athletics than women, absent socialization and disparate opportunities. In the absence of any proof supporting Brown’s claim, and in view of congressional and administrative urging that women, given the opportunity, will naturally participate in athletics in numbers equal to men, we do not find that the regulation, when read in the common-sense manner that its language suggests, see supra Part 111(C)(3), offends the Fifth Amendment.

*901 What is more, even if we were to assume, for argument’s sake, that the regulation creates a gender classification slanted somewhat in favor of women, we would find no constitutional infirmity. It is clear that Congress has broad powers under the Fifth Amendment to remedy past discrimination. See, e.g., Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 565-66, 110 S.Ct. 2997, 3009, 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990) (noting that Congress need not make specific findings of discrimination to grant race-conscious relief); Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 317, 97 S.Ct. 1192, 1195, 51 L.Ed.2d 360 (1977) (upholding social security wage law that benefitted women in part because its purpose was “the permissible one of redressing our society’s longstanding disparate treatment of women”). Despite the little legislative history regarding discrimination in collegiate athletics that emerged during the consideration of Title IX, Congress did hold “extensive hearings on higher education” when Title IX was pending, in the course of which “much testimony was heard with respect to discrimination against women in our institutions of higher education.” H.R.Rep. No. 554, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972), reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2462, 2511. Athletics featured even more prominently in Congress’s decision to reverse the Grove City rule. See supra p. 894. Under these circumstances, we find Brown’s plaint unbecoming.

B. Affirmative Action.