Recent Legal Scholarship on Sport and Gender

Two new articles on sport, law and gender have caught my eye.

First, Professor Suzanne Eckes from Indiana University School of Law has published Title IX and High School Opportunities: Issues of Equity on and in the Court in the current issue of the Wisconsin Women's Law Journal (citation: 21 Wisc Women's L.J. 175). She suggests that after Jackson v. Birmingham, "school districts need to pay even closer attention to Title IX compliance because they may face more challenges from coaches and other observers."

Second, Yael Lee Aura Shy, a third year law student at Northeastern, has an excellent article in the Sports Lawyers Journal (citation: 14 Sports Law. J. 95) called "Like Any Other Girl": Male-to-Female Transsexuals and Professional Sports. Focusing on professional sports, Shy does not directly address the legal status of transsexual athletes in intercollegiate sport. But she does point out the trend of transsexual inclusion policies by sport governing bodies, and cites some evidence suggesting that the NCAA is considering an inclusive policy as well. More generally, she suggests that the discourse surrounding transsexual inclusion cases and policies can undermine gender equality by reinforcing a gender binary and generalizations about physical inferiority of female athletes.