From the introduction:
When a company offers to give a school's basketball team free shoes or any other kind of equipment or gear, it may seem like a welcome gift... But what happens when the company gives the gift to only the girls' team or to only the boys' team and not the other gender in either case? The statutes and regulations of Title IX step in and give guidance to primary and secondary schools. This article will consider the applicable statutory and regulatory language concerning gifts of shoes and other equipment; the administrative policies and judicial interpretations that have been applied to the statutory and regulatory language; and the efforts that have been made to educate the administrators of school districts, booster organizations and parents about gifts of free gear and equipment.For more see Patricia Cervenko, Free Shoes for Primary and Secondary Schools: Playing by the Rules of Title IX, 17 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 285 (2006).
Another question to add the discussion of athletic shoes in general -- there seems to have been an increase in foot-related injuries: plantar faciaitis (sic?) & stress fractures... clearly overplaying has something to do with it, but I wonder about the orthopedics involved.... have the shoe makers REALLY taken care to study the female athlete's foot (remember.... Walton? i believe, had foot problems related to his shoes. And, more recently, Hingis)
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