[needle]

Universities aren’t “flouting the law” with rowing etc.  They are doing it to comply with the participation requirement - which is acheived most easily by having participation and scholarships/aid numbers equal to the percentage of women and men in the student body.

Here's a relevant passage from Gilbert Gaul's "Billion Dollar Ball": 

Because the football schools now had to rely on women's rowing to offset their big numbers, part of the job description of rowing coaches was to effectively become used-car salesmen and meet a quota by producing enough bodies. ...... The coaches looked anywhere they might find a tall, rangy woman with a little muscle on her. And when they saw one, they shadowed her until the right moment.  Then they leaped forward and made their pitch 'Hey, have you ever thought about women's rowing?

The history of Title IX is a history of schools counting rowing participants during fall tryouts after begging students--often with minimal knowledge of the sport--to try out, knowing that most will participate for a couple of weeks only. The numbers game dictates that they get counted as participants for Title IX purposes. Title IX gets treated as just a ridiculous numbers game at many schools. 

And at the majority of schools, it falls well short of what was intended:

https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college...234778480/

 A report publicly released Thursday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed the open secret of federal gender-equity laws related to college athletics: They are systematically violated and essentially unenforced.

The GAO report, unassumingly titled “Education Should Improve its Title IX Enforcement Efforts,” found that during the 2021-22 academic year, 93% of universities had female athletic participation rates lower than their enrollment rate, while 63% of schools had participation-enrollment gaps of 10% or more. Overall, the athletic participation rate for collegiate women was 14% less than their enrollment rate.  

[needle]

Universities aren’t “flouting the law” with rowing etc.  They are doing it to comply with the participation requirement - which is acheived most easily by having participation and scholarships/aid numbers equal to the percentage of women and men in the student body.

Here's a relevant passage from Gilbert Gaul's "Billion Dollar Ball": 

Because the football schools now had to rely on women's rowing to offset their big numbers, part of the job description of rowing coaches was to effectively become used-car salesmen and meet a quota by producing enough bodies. ...... The coaches looked anywhere they might find a tall, rangy woman with a little muscle on her. And when they saw one, they shadowed her until the right moment.  Then they leaped forward and made their pitch 'Hey, have you ever thought about women's rowing?

The history of Title IX is a history of schools counting rowing participants during fall tryouts after begging students--often with minimal knowledge of the sport--to try out, knowing that most will participate for a couple of weeks only. The numbers game dictates that they get counted as participants for Title IX purposes. Title IX gets treated as just a ridiculous numbers game at many schools. 

And at the majority of schools, it falls well short of what was intended:

https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college...234778480/

 A report publicly released Thursday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed the open secret of federal gender-equity laws related to college athletics: They are systematically violated and essentially unenforced.

The GAO report, unassumingly titled “Education Should Improve its Title IX Enforcement Efforts,” found that during the 2021-22 academic year, 93% of universities had female athletic participation rates lower than their enrollment rate, while 63% of schools had participation-enrollment gaps of 10% or more. Overall, the athletic participation rate for collegiate women was 14% less than their enrollment rate.