Just a week before the Supreme Court strengthened the enforcement of Title IX regulations, the Department of Education released new guidelines that make it easier for schools to get around the law.

Title IX, which became law in 1972, requires that schools that receive federal funding provide equal academic and athletic opportunities for men and women. There’s a three-part test applied to make sure schools comply with the law: The number of sporting opportunities for men and women are proportionate to enrollment; programs are growing for the underrepresented sex; or the school has to show that the interests and abilities of students are accommodated.

The new Department of Education guidelines, which were released March 18, however, undercut these rigorous requirements by allowing an e-mail survey of students to determine the level of interest that women have in sports. As anyone who has every taken an Internet survey knows, the results are far from scientific, and with the level of spam clogging inboxes everywhere, e-mail surveys would likely be discarded as junk.

If students don’t respond to the survey, noncompliance could be camouflaged.

The bad news was offset by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, when it ruled that schools could not retaliate against people who blow the whistle on discrimination. In the case, Roderick Jackson was fired as the girls’ basketball coach at a school in Alabama after he complained that the team was not treated equally with the boys’ team. By extending the protections of Title IX beyond just those who have been discriminated against, the Supreme Court has shielded conscientious advocates from punishment. The ruling frees coaches and teachers to protect the interests of their athletes without fear of reprisal.

More than 30 years after the passage of Title IX, we still have a long way to go before gender inequities in school athletics are eliminated. According to a 2002 report by the National Women’s Law Center, which strongly advocates for strict Title IX enforcement, girls make up only 42 percent of high school and college varsity athletes, despite making up a majority of the student population at many schools. In Division I athletics, women account for more than half of the population, but receive only 43 percent of athletic scholarship money and 36 percent of operating budgets.

For every dollar spent on women’s sports, almost two were spent on men’s, the report says.

That’s not even close to equal treatment.

As long as the Department of Education works to undermine Title IX, the gap won’t be closed. The new e-mail gimmick to avoid equal treatment shouldn’t become an accepted standard of judging compliance; Title IX should not be rolled back. If it is, more girls and young women will be denied the opportunity to play.