Ann Arbor No Longer Plans to Exempt Football from Cuts

This post follows up on a story we blogged about in June, about a budget reduction plan by the Ann Arbor School District to cut all the freshman teams at its three high schools, with the exception of the freshman football teams. As we explained back then, there was in our minds no way a school district could make such a move, especially coupled with some other cuts that affected more girls' teams than boys', and still comply with Title IX.

I recently learned via personal correspondence from someone connected to the matter, that someone filed complaint with OCR to challenge the cuts, and that OCR commenced an investigation. I further learned that the complaint was eventually withdrawn upon assurances from the school district that it would not put that particular reduction plan in place. I don't know what Ann Arbor decided to instead to balance its budget, but hopefully its interaction with OCR resulted in cuts that were equitable between girls and boys.