Professor Mota on NCAA and Title IX

New Title IX scholarship was recently published in the Journal of College and University Law: Sue Ann Mota, Title IX, the NCAA, and Intercollegiate Athletics, 22 J. College and Univ. L. 121 (2006) [available on Westlaw at 33 JCUL 121].

Professor Mota examines the NCAA's role in Title IX compliance, specifically its requirement for Division I member institutions to include gender equity plans as part of their certification processes. She describes Title IX's regulatory requirements for equity in participation, scholarship, and other program factors that a university certification should address in their gender equity plans. She argues that the universities should use the rather "minimal" requirements of the NCAA self study process to perform more "comprehensive" program evaluations with an eye toward overall compliance.

The NCAA does not monitor compliance of its member institutions, but it does play an important "facilitat[or]" role. In light of this, Professor Mota recommends specific ways the NCAA could be more effective in this role. She recommends, for example, that in addition to requiring a gender equity plan, the NCAA actually "require that the plan moves the member toward compliance with Title IX." She also thinks the NCAA could do more than just collect and disseminate compliance data, but "best practices" as well. Last, she suggests NCAA "review roster and scholarship limits to see if these could be adjusted to help member institutions in the area of financial assistance." Here here. But this last recommendation would be helpful to member institutions even beyond reducing spending on financial assistance. Stricter roster and scholarship limits when applied to football would alleviate pressure on universities to cut other men's sports in order to achieve proportionality.