Gender equality. The subject makes for some terribly convoluted arguments when it comes to balancing any given aspect of life for men and women.

One of the more creative mistakes in the process has been through Title IX: “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,” according to United States Code Section 20.

On its face, it looks to be a great move to help ensure women are not eschewed from participation in sports. Now the girl who wants to wrestle or play football can, hypothetically.

But delving deeper into the situation, comes the nigh impossible regulation, particularly when it comes to college athletics. To make certain to allow more women to participate, schools are given a few options: cut funding from a particularly popular venue — let’s say football — and create new teams for the women to play on; or find more funding — donations, federal programs, etc. — to allow for the creation of more teams for women to play on.

Both approaches are fine on their faces, but what has been happening due to shrinking budgets or general unwillingness to comply with Title IX is that some schools are listing a single woman multiple times for certain sports — indoor track, outdoor track and cross country — or adding women to rosters only to be cut a week after the evaluation, or not even informing some of the women that they have been listed as team members. The New York Times recently published an excellent feature describing these practices.

This is fraud, but in description, not legally. It is a within-the-rules method due to poor regulation and vagueness of terms: men can be counted on women’s teams if they receive coaching and training with women, said David A. Bergeron, deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Postsecondary Education, in the New York Times article.

But there is a further side to the issue that can also be overlooked: not all schools are playing dirty. Some schools are forced into recruiting female athletes to participate, that are simply not of the caliber or interest level needed to warrant their participation; or creating a team for the purpose of balancing female involvement in federal programs.

Why should a school have to put forth a great deal of effort to make certain enough women are interested in programs simply to fill quotas? What if the situation simply is that a majority of women do not want to participate and, as such, the existing teams must cut funding from those teams avidly participating so that gender equality can appear to blossom?

Programs should be created because of a genuine interest, not because of a numerical requirement. Creating programs just to meet quotas cheapens the existence of strong programs that accommodate both men and women.

There is not a correct answer to any of these situations at present. The rules for Title IX allow for loopholes, and they can cause damage at institutions where gender equality is not a particularly pertinent issue for similar programs.

Title IX enforcement from school to school needs to be handled in a drastically different way from the current methodology. It cannot be monitored well enough in its present state to ensure gender equality occurs. This law covers thousands of schools and millions of athletes. How can something this broad be enforced effectively?

Making certain women are given the same opportunities as men is, of course, of the utmost importance; but Title IX does not accomplish this effectively. In a similar vein, creating teams of sub par athletes just to accommodate gender equality is not what the law set out to achieve, and this practice is a slap in the face of real gender equality efforts.

Title IX is an attempt to cover a serious problem with a blanket rule, where in reality, there must be many, many more rules and accommodations made in what are, essentially, situation by situation basis.