As we mentioned last week, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics met on January 22. The Knight Commission is an independent research organization that studies intercollegiate athletic and makes recommendations for the reform in the interest of academic and financial integrity. Of the three panels that presented at the meeting, one was devoted to the topic of gender equity. The podcast of this panel, along with the other two, is available here.
I am looking forward to listening to this because the gender equity panelists represent a variety of perspectives. Dr. Christine Grant is a Title IX proponent and advocate for women's sports; Janet Judge is an attorney in private practice who represents universities in compliance matters; Ted Leland chaired the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, which made a number of controversial recommendations to weaken Title IX; and Eric Pearson leads the College Sports Council, an organization lobbies and litigates against Title IX.
Showing posts with label Knight Commission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knight Commission. Show all posts
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Knight Commission discusses gender equity
The Knight Commission met earlier this week to discuss recruiting practices and gender equity issues in intercollegiate sport.
Dr. Christine Grant spoke (Chronicle of Higher Education--subscription only) about the growth of football and men's basketball budgets and their role in achieving (or not) gender equity. At the Division 1A level football budgets have tripled in the past two decades while men's basketball budgets have quadrupled. [Part of the exponential increases are due to the rising coaches' salaries--an issue the commission addressed as well.]
Together, the budgets for football and men's basketball comprise, on average, 76 percent of men's sports budgets. That leaves very little left for what are now being called men's "minor" sports such as wrestling, track, rowing, gymnastics, and tennis. When cuts are made to such teams, Title IX gets blamed as we have seen most vividly in the response by wrestling coaches, players, and fans to cuts incurred in their sport.
But as Dr. Grant noted, "It's not Title IX that's causing this problem. It's the insatiable appetites of football and basketball."
Dr. Christine Grant spoke (Chronicle of Higher Education--subscription only) about the growth of football and men's basketball budgets and their role in achieving (or not) gender equity. At the Division 1A level football budgets have tripled in the past two decades while men's basketball budgets have quadrupled. [Part of the exponential increases are due to the rising coaches' salaries--an issue the commission addressed as well.]
Together, the budgets for football and men's basketball comprise, on average, 76 percent of men's sports budgets. That leaves very little left for what are now being called men's "minor" sports such as wrestling, track, rowing, gymnastics, and tennis. When cuts are made to such teams, Title IX gets blamed as we have seen most vividly in the response by wrestling coaches, players, and fans to cuts incurred in their sport.
But as Dr. Grant noted, "It's not Title IX that's causing this problem. It's the insatiable appetites of football and basketball."
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