Don't let women suffer a setback: the law that helped create female champions like Marion Jones is under attack. Here the Olympic gold medalist explains why Title IX is so important. (On My Mind).

You probably think of me as a runner, but the truth is, I've actually participated in a lot of different sports in my life. When I was a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, I used to play T-ball with the other kids in the neighborhood. I started to do gymnastics and play soccer, and I later ran track and joined my high school basketball team. To be honest, I didn't know much about Title IX, the civil rights law passed in 1972 that requires all federally funded schools to devote equal resources to male and female sports teams. The issue had never really affected me--anytime I wanted to play something, I just did it.

But that all changed when I got to college. I was a freshman on a basketball scholarship at the University of North Carolina. And all of a sudden, I realized that despite the fact that we were a championship team, there was still a huge disparity between the men's and women's programs. We would hear all the guy players bragging about their nice uniforms, how much money they got when traveling, and how they could eat at any restaurant they wanted while on the road. It seemed obvious to me that the female players weren't getting what they deserved. Even though Title IX had been in place for two decades, it still wasn't being enforced properly.

In the past few years, there's been a serious backlash against this invaluable law, and the Bush administration has appointed a commission to look at Title IX to see if it should be made less stringent. This January, the commission will be making its recommendations to Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Because of this threat, I want to speak up about what things would be like if Title IX had never been enacted. We can start on a personal level. I know for a fact that I would not have the career I've had without it--instead of developing my athletic abilities in school, I would have had to train on my ...