Cuts at UNM Still Fall Short of Title IX Compliance

Earlier this year I posted about the University of New Mexico's decision to publish its consultant's report that, I thought, bent over backwards to reach the conclusion that cutting sports is necessary for Title IX compliance. Interestingly, however, the university's announcement today that it will cut two men's and two women's teams does not put the university into compliance.

The university will eliminate men's soccer and skiing, a total of 38 opportunities. This will bring the total number of men's opportunities from 319 to 280. On the women's side, the university will eliminate beach volleyball and skiing, a total of 25 opportunities. This will leave women with 218 opportunities, compared to the 243 they have now.  Women will therefore receive 43.8% of the athletic opportunities, but because women make up 54.9% of the undergraduate student body, the university is still a long ways off from proportionality.  In addition, by cutting two existing women's teams, the university has likely disqualified itself from compliance under either of the alternative tests. Cutting women's teams is the opposite of expanding opportunities for the underrepresented sex, the second compliance test. And it creates unmet interest and ability among the underrepresented sex, which demonstrates lack of compliance with the third test. 

The university's plan also calls for phasing out diving from the women’s swimming and diving program, significantly reducing men’s track and field participation slots, and increasing participation opportunities in some women’s programs. However, there is no way that these modest changes will close the proportionality gap. There are 5 divers on the swimming and diving team. And most of UNM's other female sport rosters already exceed the NCAA Division I average squad size. (One sport, women's soccer, has 40 players despite an NCAA average of 28!) The only two teams that don't exceed the average would reach the average by adding only 1 player to the roster. Thus, the university's roster management plan --- unless it plans to inflate rosters with opportunities that it won't legally be able to count under Title IX --- will probably involve a net loss of female athlete opportunities, rather than a gain. That means, the university would have to make up the proportionality gap by cutting over 100 men's opportunities, according to my math. Yet, the men's track team doesn't even have that many on the roster.

By cutting women's teams, UNM is making its compliance challenges worse, not better. This result is not consistent with its pointing at Title IX as a key factor in the decision to downsize its athletic programs in the first place.