INDIANAPOLIS---The following is a statement from NCAA President Myles Brand regarding the Department of Education’s clarification of Title IX with respect to the use of an e-mail survey to enrolled undergraduate students as a measure of interest in athletics:

"I am disappointed in the way the Department of Education promulgated its clarification of Title IX regulations with regard to determining the interest level of females in athletics.  The department issued its clarification without benefit of public discussion and input.

"The e-mail survey suggested in the clarification will not provide an adequate indicator of interest among young women to participate in college sports, nor does it encourage young women to participate – a failure that will likely stymie the growth of women’s athletics and could reverse the progress made over the last three decades.  One need only observe the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship that is underway to understand the effect of encouragement for women to participate, the high level of play at which women compete and the public interest in women’s athletics.”