Under a 1995 court ruling, universities could show they were in compliance with Title IX by meeting what is known as a proportionality test -- that is, showing that their ratio of male to female athletes was nearly equal to their overall ratio of male to female undergraduates.
Occasionally interrupted by applause from a friendly audience of members of the ruling Baath Party, university professors and members of Syria's feeble parliament, he added that "victory is near".
"Prior to this particular ruling, every university in the country was already thinking about all of the alternatives, depending on the outcome of the case, and about how to prove whether a policy is working," said Joanne E. Berg, vice provost for enrollment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The hotly contested election took place 25 to 27 April, drawing approximately 1400 eligible ballots from graduate assistants defined in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling as university employees.
SAN FRANCISCO--Graduate student labor organizers at University of California (UC) campuses, still fired up from their brief labor strike in December, say a recent state board ruling leaves university administrators only two choices: recognize the grad student labor union or disobey the law.
That landmark ruling barred universities from setting aside seats for minority applicants but did not prohibit the colleges from using race in considering prospective students.
But almost without exception, courts have refused to become enmeshed in personnel decisions, ruling that universities have broad discretion to consider collegiality.
Before the mid-1980s, televised college football amounted to little more than one national game a week, along with a few regional telecasts, all controlled by the N.C.A.A. Then a Supreme Court antitrust ruling freed universities and conferences to negotiate their own TV deals.
At the same time, the Court reinforced its earlier rulings that university admissions policies must be narrowly tailored and necessary to advance the compelling interest in diversity.
"Is this going to be done, in your view, in 12 years?" Under that 2003 decision and an earlier 1978 ruling, public universities may consider race as one of many factors when selecting their entering classes.
