NCAA Won't Discuss Trans Inclusion

[Cross posted at After Atalanta.]

I virtually attended last week's NCAA annual Inclusion Forum which was celebrating Title IX but also included issues of BIPOC inclusion and athlete mental health (among others).

There was a panel on Thursday afternoon headlined by former Harvard swimmer Schuyler Bailar about trans athletes. 

When the conference was announced, I was curious about how the organization would approach--or even if they would--trans athletes given the recent seemingly abrupt change in their policy (January 2022--curiously amidst the growing visibility of Penn swimmer Lia Thomas). They moved from a not ideal but not totally horrible policy in which hormone levels (specifically testosterone) governed participation, to a we-are-cowards-kowtowing-to-the-misnamed-fear-mongering-save-women's-sports folks policy in which trans athletes are treated as cheaters constantly having to submit to surveillance. Additionally, the NCAA policy is basically a non-policy because they have decided to follow the "Olympic model" in which each college sport will follow the rules of its governing body. 

They have washed their hands of responsibility to throw the anti-trans activists off their backs, and they have sacrificed trans athletes in the process as well as compromising their own philosophy about the goal of college sports and inclusion and participation. To be fair, the organization has never truly adhered to that philosophy. [I will save a more thorough interrogation of the policy for another post.]  

The description of the panel in the agenda (available in the first link above) was as follows:

Session 1 | Beyond the Headlines: Understanding the Trans & Non Binary Student-Athlete Experience Media headlines and state laws have contributed to increased discussion about transgender and nonbinary athletes. Rarely are the perspectives of these athletes shared or included in these discussions. This session provides an opportunity to hear directly from a former trans student-athlete about their experience in college sports and to discuss with administrators how campuses can support all student-athletes around this subject. 

Schuyler told his story, the panel (there were two others who work in college athletics) answered some pre-set questions posed by the moderator, and we in the audience were allowed to submit questions in the Q&A window. Several of us asked questions about policy--the NCAA's and other organizations' policies. NONE of them were picked. 

In the chat, as things were winding down and it was clear these questions would go unasked, I commented on this fact. Schuyler saw my comment, in which I mentioned that these policies are a form of violence (because he had talked about violent threats against him on social media and anti-trans violence in general). He responded that the panel was not about policy but about showing the humanity of trans people by sharing the story of a trans person. 

Humanity is great; I wish the NCAA had more of it in fact. But framing this panel as one about humanity and then refusing to discuss policies that are the opposite of humane; that in fact are othering, is disingenuous. I am not directly blaming Schuyler Bailar. I am sure the directive was issued from on high. In fact, when I went to the panel description as it was presented on the meeting platform (different from the posted agenda), I found this addition: Please note, this session is not intended to discuss or go into detail around the NCAA's transgender student-athlete participation policy.

The humanity discourse was a cover. It allowed the NCAA to show a success story in Schuyler Bailar. It threw attention off of their own inhumane governance. It is a cover for the violence they are doing. It focused on one person, which has been a huge problem in ALL the discussions of trans athletes. They are focusing on individuals and not the larger philosophy(ies) and ethics of sport and human dignity. This approach has made lightning rods out of people such as Lia Thomas. It literally endangers lives by perpetuating the idea that trans people are not fully human; that they should be subjected to constant testing and monitoring and scrutiny. It was offensive that they approached the issue this way at a conference about inclusion. 

Yes...and...but...well...: The NCAA Tourney and Issues of Equality

 The following is an only slightly less contorted path through my original thought process in the wake of  Sedona Prince's Tik Tok revealing the gross inequities between the workout facilities for the women and men at this year's NCAA basketball tournament. (There was also an issue with the swag bags. Side note: interesting that the NCAA is allowed to give gifts to athletes, but no one else is.)

Initial thought: 

Anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention. 

Some less cynical second [and so forth thought(s)]: 

It seems that this very obvious disparate treatment brought some needed attention to the issue. We rarely see more than a handful (fingerful? thanks for all you do, Dawn Staley!) of women coaches speak up about issues of inequality. Not surprising given that women coaches are often fired for speaking up (#Iowa, #FresnoState, #FloridaGulfCoast, #manyotherplaces). This is good--the speaking up, not the firing. 

But of course the condemnation was of the NCAA, which is pretty low hanging fruit in terms of places to blame. No institution is going to retaliate against a coach for criticizing the NCAA over this clear mistreatment of women athletes. In short: they spoke out about a fairly one-sided issue. I feel this to be true because I have yet to hear any utterance of "keep politics out of sports." This is interesting because...

...politicians got in on this too. Most notably, Mikie Sherrill, a representative from New Jersey, is leading a group of three dozen representatives in demanding a response from the NCAA. I read this as opportunistic. There is nothing in the recent past regarding Congress's efforts to reform sports or hold organizations accountable (NFL concussion crisis, steroids in baseball) that makes me believe this action will create a reckoning for the NCAA in regard to gender equity. 

The truly less cynical part:

I chose to come to the conclusion that the reason this disparity was so glaring and that the reason Prince and her peers recognized it right away was because there has been a large improvement in the quality of experiences women intercollegiate athletes are receiving. These women are accustomed to better treatment. They have great weight rooms and other training and practice facilities; they have access to amazing coaching staffs and medical staffs, etc. 

Erin and I wrote about Title IX's equal treatment mandate in 2012. We had many, many, many examples of disparate treatment that schools were forced to resolve. I don't know if things have gotten better universally, or even just within intercollegiate sports (versus interscholastic) in terms of equal treatment. Or rather, I don't know how to measure that. 

I suspect that things are better for the top teams. So Oregon State probably does treat its men's and women's basketball team fairly equally. But that is easier to see and achieve because it is a like versus like comparison. How is the field hockey team treated? How is the field hockey team, plus the women's soccer team, plus the cross country team, plus the women's tennis team treated in comparison to the football team? Because that is how treatment is supposed to be assessed. It is not team versus team; it is based on the quality of experience for men athletes and female athletes. So if the 125 members of the men's football team receive locker room space with TVs and couches and other sweet amenities, 125 women athletes should be receiving something comparable. Are they? 

Who knows? Accountability only comes when a complaint or a lawsuit is filed. Some schools do Title IX self studies, but...self studies. How effective are they? 

The NCAA used to have an accreditation process for Division I schools which included a Title IX component, but they stopped those years ago. I argue that one (but not the only) reason this weight room fiasco happened was because the NCAA is out of touch with what is happening on campuses. If NCAA folks were going into schools, they would see what equal treatment looked like. Prince and the other women expected something better because they get much better on their respective campuses. 

What I hope will come out of this:

More student athletes learn about Title IX and what they are due because of this law and act on it.

More student athletes advocate for the equal treatment of all women's teams on campus, not just the ones that are popular or successful.

I was going to add something here about wanting the NCAA to get back into schools, but I don't think the organization, as a whole, has proven itself trustworthy or effective. My wish for its effective governance is countered by my hope that it collapses under the weight of its own dysfunction. So that's a wash. 

Congress will give more funding to OCR so it can effectively investigate Title IX complaints. Maybe it could even do something very pro-active and institute a system through which schools report how they are providing equitable treatment and not just equitable opportunities.

 

Transgender cases updates

University of North Carolina is flip-flopping on HB2. Initially, UNC president, Margaret Spellings (former Secretary of Education) announced that the state's flagship university would indeed enforce HB2's bathroom and locker room rules (requiring people to use bathrooms based on the sex stated on their birth certificates). This was despite Spelling's own experience with Title IX and the lawsuits between the federal government and the state of North Carolina. Spellings's initial stance was to follow the law until courts said otherwise.

But now Spellings has said UNC will NOT be enforcing HB2 choosing the same rationale: to wait until the legal wranglings are over.  She also promised to investigate any complaints from trans students, faculty, or staff who may run into problems. No complaints thus far.

In Texas, which is also suing the Obama administration for its Title IX clarification regarding trans rights, the University Interscholastic League, the governance body which controls athletics in public schools, has put into the rules that students may only compete in sports in accordance with the sex listed on their birth certificates. The spokesperson for the organization said this has always been the practice, they just wanted to put it in writing. Equality Texas will fight the new-not-new rule.

In older news...

A potential bill barring transgender students from using bathrooms and other marked single-sex facilities according to their lived gender is drawing concern from the governor of Tennessee. The bill being considered by the legislature is similar to the one in Texas and states that "public schools shall require that a student use student restroom and locker room facilities that are assigned for use by persons of the same sex as the sex indicated on the student’s original birth certificate.” There is no mention of transgender students, but the bill is clearly aimed at these individuals.

But the governor is worried--and rightly so--that passing the law would mean the public schools would lose federal funding. As we have noted before, the Obama administration as well as the courts, have affirmed that Title IX protects transgender students and provides them the right to use bathrooms and locker rooms in their lived gender.

A nearly identical bill in South Dakota, passed the by state's legislature earlier this year, was vetoed by the governor in early March. The Republican governor (the legislature is also Republican controlled) said the bill was too sweeping and that these issues, when they arise--which he feels is rarely, are best dealt with by local officials. This is a bad approach. Yes, the law was also bad, because it conflicts with federal regulations, but leaving things to local officials is not a good idea either. It leaves trans students unprotected and opens up local school districts to lawsuits.

In response to the increase in the number of Title IX exemptions being sought by private religious colleges and universities, LBGT rights groups have put pressure on the NCAA to prevent schools who received these exemptions (which allow them to discriminate against transgender students) from being member schools. The petition which includes about 80 groups and is being lead by Campus Ally did not sway the NCAA which declined to take the recommended actions.

In a far more progressive consideration of these issues, the Albuquerque (New Mexico) Public Schools board is considering a proposal that allows transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in keeping with their gender identity. There has been some concern from board members about children being exposed to the body parts of the "opposite sex" but these were seemingly quickly shut down by those who noted that any type of indecent exposure in these spaces is illegal and others who likened the discriminatory discourse against trans people to the rationale white people have used in the past against people of color.

The proposal also includes the following provisions:

• The district will provide age-appropriate instruction to all students on gender-based discrimination.
• Students will be addressed by the name and pronoun that aligns with their gender identity.
•  Students are permitted to participate in physical education classes and intramural sports consistent with their gender identity.
• The student and parents may request a support team meeting to ensure proper access to all programs and activities, as well as protection from gender-based discrimination.
• Students have the right to dress in accordance with their gender identity within the constraints of the dress code.

Cost-of-Living Stipends Raise Gender Equity Challenges

On August 1, a new NCAA rule will take effect that allows college athletic programs in the five "power" conferences to increase athletic scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance by providing athletes with a stipend to cover living expenses beyond tuition, books, and room. Will these new benefits to college athletes be distributed in compliance with Title IX?  If one institution's plans are any indication, it's not looking good for gender equity.

University of Nevada Las Vegas reports that it is committed to funding stipends for athletes participating in football and men's and women's basketball.  That means 98 men will benefit (85 scholarship football players and 13 basketball) compared to only 15 women. The university also reports that the average stipend award (which is not necessarily the same for each player but varies to reflect their own individualized costs) is $4500. That's amounts to a dollar-figure disparity of about $373,500 in favor of men's athletics at a university that already allocates 59% of its athletic financial aid resources to men's teams. 

In contrast, some schools plan to award the stipend to full-scholarship athletes in every sport, something that comes closer to equitable since the NCAA has women's volleyball, gymnastics, and tennis  (along with football and men's and women's basketball) to be full-scholarship instead of partial-scholarship (i.e., "equivalency") sports.  Some schools have also suggested they may award partial stipends to those on partial scholarships. 

These diverse approaches suggest a need for the NCAA and the power five conferences themselves to ensure that all member institutions are factoring gender equity in to their decision to award stipends, or, alternatively, that the Office for Civil Rights clarify an institution's compliance obligation under Title IX.  Such guidance could treat stipends like other athletic financial aid that is regulated by Title IX, and  requires the dollar figure amount be proportionate to the breakdown of male or female athletes.  Alternatively, given that the stipend amounts are individualized to each athlete taking into account factors other than sex, I think it would also be reasonable to instead require that the number of stipends (comparing full and partial separately) be equitable between the sexes.  Either way, however, it seems clear that athletic departments are not going to spontaneously comply with Title IX, and that guidance of some kind is in order.

NCAA Allows Grants for Families' Travel to Football Championship

Yesterday the NCAA announced plans to offer financial assistance to families of athletes who will travel to the men's and women's basketball Final Four and championship game in April, as well as the national football championship next week.  For the basketball tournament, the NCAA itself will pay up to $3000 in travel, hotel, and meal expenses for family members of the athletes who participate in the semifinal games, and $4000 for families who stay on to watch their athlete compete in the final. The NCAA has given permission for the College Football Playoff to provide $3000 to the families of athletes competing in the championship game.  (Such benefits would otherwise not be permitted by NCAA's rules against player compensation, and thus required a waiver.)

It is easy to surmise the NCAA's benevolent motivations here.  College athletics is under fire for the ways in which it arguably exploits the labor of college athletes, whose efforts generate millions of dollars for the NCAA and its members. Programs like this one answer that charge in ways that appear consistent with the principle of amateurism, which prohibits compensation for labor. Separately, however, the NCAA's family travel grants program raises some Title IX issues that are important to consider.

The NCAA's family travel grants program, while discriminatory, is not subject to Title IX.

The NCAA is providing grants to families of both its male and female athletes, so from its standpoint, it is not engaging in sex discrimination where basketball is concerned.  However, in permitting football players to receive this benefit and not extending a similar waiver to other female sport, the NCAA has arguably engaged in discrimination on the basis of sex. However, this discrimination does not have much legal significance. The Supreme Court has concluded that the NCAA is not itself subject to Title IX because it does not receive federal funds. (Technically, that decision was decided on rather narrow grounds that leaves some room for reexamination. But I'm setting that rather complex issue aside for now to focus on more glaring Title IX problems.)

But, member institutions who receive family travel grants from the NCAA/CFP must account for them under Title IX.

On the other hand, the NCAA's members do receive federal funds and are subject to Title IX. An institution that receives family travel grants on behalf of its players and their families would have to ensure that these benefits do not produce disparities on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX. The fact that the grants would come from the NCAA or from College Football Playoff (or technically, CFP Administration LLC) and not the institutions themselves does not absolve the university of ensuring Title IX compliance.  OCR has already made clear that benefits to the athletes "attained through the use of private funds" are considered in combination with all benefits, services or opportunities that are subject to Title IX.  This standard was set forth in a letter explaining the Title IX obligations with respect to booster-club funded benefits, and there is no reason to think that benefits funded by other private benefactors, whether it be the NCAA or CFP Administration LLC, would be treated any differently.

Family travel grants should be considered a factor in the equal treatment analysis. 

In terms of equal treatment, it is clearly a benefit of participation for athletes to have their family members at the championship game, just as it is a benefit of participation to have access to coaching, dining, travel, equipment, uniforms, etc. If the family travel grants favored athletes of one sex, it would violate Title IX's requirement to provide equal treatment in the aggregate to men's and women's programs, just as any other lopsided distribution of a laundry-list item would.

In the basketball context, a university that receives this benefit on behalf of athletes of one sex but not the other would be able to defend the lopsided distribution by pointing out that the basketball team of the other sex had equal opportunity to access this benefit, if it too had made it to the Final Four. But in the football context, such a defense is unavailable. Institutions that accept family travel grants on behalf of football players actually have no way of providing a commensurate benefit to the members of another women's team who makes it to their championship game, since the NCAA did not provide any other waivers that would permit such awards. A Title IX violations in this regard seems inevitable.
 
Family travel grants could also be considered athletic financial aid. 

There is also a strong argument that the grants would be considered athletic financial assistance, which according to OCR "includes any financial-assistance expenditure through the institution’s athletics program and any other aid connected to a student’s athletic participation or ability."  The benefit is clearly connected to the athlete's participation. It is also probably not significant that grant is to the athlete's family rather than the athlete him or herself.  In general, the government treats the student as an extension of his or her family when it comes to financial aid for education.  It is hard to imagine the Department of Education drawing a distinction between financial aid awarded directly to a student and a grant awarded to a student's family.    

Assuming that the family travel grounds count as athletic financial aid, Title IX would require the institution to factor in the total amount awarded in family travel grants to the overall total of athletic financial aid that must be distributed proportionately to the athletes of each sex. For example, the University of Oregon football team has 115 players on the roster. If each of their families receives $3000, that's a total of $345,000 more in athletic financial aid for men that the institution would have to match in athletic financial aid for women in proportion to their percentage of the total student athlete population. Interestingly, I think this obligation to provide matching funds for the opposite would apply in the basketball context, as well, regardless of whether it's the women's or men's team who receives the benefit.

Hmmm...

I wonder if the NCAA was thinking about Title IX when it made this decision?

NCAA Reform and Title IX

Last week a federal district court judge ruled in favor of the former college athletes, lead by Ed O'Bannon, who were challenging NCAA rules that prevented them from sharing in the proceeds that their colleges and universities earned by licensing their names and likenesses for commercial purposes like television broadcasts. The court agreed with the athletes that NCAA restrictions on athlete compensation are a form of price fixing that unreasonably restrains trade, and, as such, violate federal antitrust law.  As a result of the court's decision, the NCAA must allow schools to use broadcast proceeds to provide stipends that compensate athletes for the true cost of attendance, which is often more than the cost of tuition, room and board, and books to which athletic scholarships are currently limited.  And it must allow schools to hold some of the money they receive from television broadcasters for using players names and likenesses in a trust fund, to be shared among the players when they graduate. Though these changes will result in only modest compensation for former athletes -- the court specified that the NCAA could restrict payments from the trust fund to ensure that athletes only receive up to $5000 -- the case is still a very big deal.  No longer can the NCAA invoke the concept of amateurism to justify whatever restrictions it would like to place on athlete compensation.

Notably, the O'Bannon plaintiffs came from the sports of men's basketball and football, which are the sports that generate broadcast revenue.  Accordingly, the decision only speaks to athletes in those sports.  Yet, the decision is bound to have an indirect effect on women's sports, as a result of Title IX.  As economist Andrew Schwarz explains, both in Jane McManus's column on espnW, as well as in his own Deadspin column yesterday, Title IX requires schools to allocate scholarship dollars in manner proportionate to the gender ratio of student athletes.  A school that decides to offer male football recruits some additional compensation would  have to ensure that a proportionate dollar amount is allocated to female athletes as well.  Otherwise, they have a compliance problem.  (Or more likely, a worse compliance problem, as many schools already do not provide enough scholarship dollars to female athletes.)

As McManus points out at the end of her column, the effect of the O'Bannon decision on women's sports could be to inject a little more money into women's sports.  But is that really a victory?   To the extent the decisions legitimizes a version of college athletics that operates, as McManus says, "as platform for ticket sales, TV contracts and cash" rather than an "educational tool" is it really a victory for college athletes at all? 

Recent cases of convenient equality

With the state of amateurism in college sports under threat (i.e., the lawsuits by current and former college athletes seeking various kinds of compensation for their efforts), policymakers and keepers are somewhat panicked about what this could cost.
The NCAA, of course, has been putting considerable efforts into countering claims that student athletes are anything but students.
Earlier this month, Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Richard Burr helped them out by invoking a gender equality discourse to claim that it would be impossible to pay student athletes like they were employees--a fear that has been amplified with the National Labor Relations Board ruling that the football players (scholarship only) at Northwestern University do meet the definition of employees and thus could unionize.
"What is going to happen to the smaller schools? What is going to happen to the minor sports? What is going to happen to the Title IX women's sports if, for some reason, a union forces universities to have a much more expensive athletic program for a few sports?" Alexander said on the Senate floor.
First of all, there are  no "Title IX women's sports"--that's not a thing.  
Second, once again we have the ever-so-unhelpful football/basketball versus everyone else binary with Title IX as the perceived divider. Except this time Title IX is being invoked in a positive way by people who are not women's sports advocates or feminists. How long will the Title IX love last? Until the next attempt to weaken the law and make it more amenable to schools that would like to funnel more resources into major sports and not have to balance this with the needs of female student athletes?

Next, last week, Judge Claudia Wilken, a US District judge, made a significant ruling in the now five-year long case initially brought by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon (now a class-action lawsuit) in which the plaintiffs are seeking an end to the NCAA's rule that student athletes cannot make money off of their likeness, image, and name. Judge Wilken ruled on the summary judgment requests of both the NCAA and the plaintiffs (she granted it to neither, the trial should begin in early June) but said that the NCAA could not present as an argument that paying athletes (which the NCAA argues is part of the end of amateurism that would come with athletes who make money from their status) would harm women's sports.
It was a win for the plaintiffs. And it's a little bit of equality karma.
From the Courthouse News Service:
 The NCAA could support women's sports and less prominent men's sports in other, less restrictive ways, Wilken said.
     "For instance, the NCAA could mandate that Division I schools and conferences redirect a greater portion of the licensing revenue generated by football and basketball to these other sports," Wilken wrote.
     "The NCAA has not explained why it could not adopt more stringent revenue-sharing rules," the judge wrote, granting the athletes summary judgment on that issue. "The challenged restraint is not justified by the NCAA's claimed desire to support women's sports or less prominent men's sports."

Both of these examples illustrate an unfortunate trend that occurs outside of sports all the time: when it serves the needs of various institutions, fairness and equality for women gets invoked. When fairness and equality are less convenient, less beneficial, more costly the latter is emphasized over the former. The discourse remains inconsistent as do the actions of the fair-weather (which only seems to come when there's something afoul in men's sports) advocates.

Equality brackets

At the start of this year's March Madness, Mother Jones published a men's bracket that determined winners based on the spending each school does on women's sports as a percentage of men's sports.  They asked the big what-if: does spending more on women's sports lead to tournament success?
American University came out the winner (116%) barely beating out cross-town rival George Washington; and Stanford was the best in the BCS (63%).
I'm not sure if Mother Jones was attempting a correlation here. If so, there was no argument to that effect. But it does raise an interesting question about whether spending on women's sports can also be beneficial to men's teams. We would have to approach this question with a paradigm based in social sciences and cultural studies research over a purely economic model and look at factors such as athletic department unity, the effect of perceived fairness, level of sex segregation across athletics departments, etc.
What I was curious about was why there was not a women's bracket that shows the same figures. This would allow those who enjoy some quantitative with their qualitative to examine the outcomes when the tournament has concluded.

Other imaginary brackets that are produced at this time of the year includes ones that use APR to consider the relationship of academic success with sport success. The APR, Academic Progress Rate, was established by the NCAA in 2004 and is calculated for Division I institutions. The academic progress of scholarship athletes is calculated on a team. That team's APR must meet an NCAA established minimum in order for--in part--the team to compete in post-season play.
The APR was created and is maintained to address issues of athlete education.

Here's the imaginary bracket I would like to see. Actually, scratch that. What I would like to see is a real commitment to gender equity by the NCAA comparable to the one it has made to the education of student athletes. How about post-season play based on Title IX compliance? It seems like such a swing back from where the NCAA is now given that the organization is no longer engaging in accreditation (which included an assessment of gender equity). How would such a system affect the real brackets?

Straight Talk from Rutgers AD on NCAA Stipend Proposal

Rutgers University Athletic Director Julie Hermann was interviewed in the local press about the challenges of helping college athletes cover the true cost of education.  Last year, the NCAA voted to allow Division I institutions to award $2000 cost-of-living stipends to those athletes already receiving a full scholarship, to cover the kind of incidentals outside of tuition, room and board.  The plan was later rescinded but the concept is still under consideration.  

As Hermann notes, the original stipend plan was inequitable from the start in terms of gender, given that far more male athletes (those in so-called "headcount sports") than female receive full scholarships and would be eligible for the stipend.  Counting the scholarships awarded in the headcount sports of men's football and basketball, Hermann notes, " you have $200,000 you can now award to your men, which is great. But that only gives you $60,000 that you can award on the women’s side [in volleyball and basketball]. You’re automatically $140,000 off.”

There's not an obvious fix, it seems.  Simply expanding eligibility to include equivalency sports, Hermann explains, would tremendously increase the total cost to institutions of funding the stipend.  People view the stipends as a way to share the profits with the athletes whose efforts generate those funds.  But most university athletic departments, even those with football programs, are not profiting on athletics.  Hermann notes that many football programs don't even turn a profit.  So the money for the stipends is coming from the university (tuition) or elsewhere in the athletics budget. So the possible consequence is that universities will cut equivalency sports in order to be able to pay out stipends to everyone else -- something Hermann doesn't want to see. 

Another challenge with the stipends, it appears, is that there's some evidence suggesting the students who received them didn't spend them as intended: "They’re buying a $500 pair of jeans that you and I don’t spend money on. So yes we could make them a card, but you have to teach them financial management. We’re trying to feed and clothe you, give you everything you need (via the stipend), but we’re not trying to make you into fashionistas."

Hermann's right that there's no easy answer to the fundamental questions of fairness that underlie this issue.  It's good to know that athletic directors like Hermann are cognizant of the gender equity implications as well as the potential implications for equivalency sports. Her remarks suggest that for most schools, stipends are not the answer, and will only drive an additional wedge between athletes in some sports that happen to be  popular with the public and others that are not.  It's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine an NCAA that governs the handful of profit-earning institutions along with everybody else.

NCAA Releases Comprehensive Best Practices for Inclusion of LGBTQ Athletes and Staff

As someone who studies discrimination in athletics from a legal perspective, I am often confronted by the limits of law to solve the problem.  Title IX is forty years old, and examples of sex discrimination persist.  States, cities, and institutions have law and policy protecting against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but many athletes and coaches still experience pressure to stay in the closet. The explanation is frustrating in its complexity -- the problem is not law, but culture.  All the law and policy on the books can't change the climate of a workplace, classroom, locker room, or other contexts in which a climate of hostility or fear suppresses individuals' abilities to freely be themselves.  How, then, can you change the culture? 

Enter Champions of Respect, the 82-page report (available here) released by the NCAA last week.  Here is a guidebook for changing the culture.  Authors Pat Griffin and Hudson Taylor have provided a thorough and comprehensive set of best practices to support inclusion, fairness, and respect for LGBTQ athletes and staff.  What makes this report particularly remarkable is its ability to move past broad aspirational statements about the importance of inclusion and respect, into the highly specific, day-to-day practices that actually cultivate a climate in which everyone feels safe, supported and respected.  For example, the report has advice for addressing intra-team dating, conveying neutrality in media and recruiting materials, responding when a student-athlete comes out, and dealing with questions from parents of recruits. The report talks about how coaches and administrators should frame and bring up discussions about team and department policies and expectations around such things as using inclusive language. It suggests, and explains how, an athletic department can assess its own climate and address its findings, and well as partner with and avail itself of other campus organizations and resources that support LGBTQ students. It provides advice to coaches considering whether or not to come out to their department and to their teams. The report provides useful and effective strategies for simultaneously supporting LGBTQ individuals as well as those with religious viewpoints that are not personally supportive of homosexuality.  It addresses and advises sensitivity around issues at the intersection of LGBTQ identity and race and class. In this report, the "T" in LGBT is not just along for the ride, as the authors provide specific recommendations relating from everything to avoiding assumptions about individuals' gender conformity, to developing policies of transgender inclusion, to using appropriate and respectful language when referring to the player by name and pronoun.  Of particular interest to me, the report even contains a section on legal resources, including a description of how Title IX has been used to challenge discrimination and harassment against LGBTQ students, and a list of various state and local laws that provide additional leverage to the cause of creating inclusive climates.

In sum, this resource, with its clear solutions for addressing a complex problem, and bearing the imprimatur of the NCAA, has real potential to create actual and meaningful change for athletes, teams, departments, institutions, conferences, and the culture of sport more generally. I am excited for this possibility.

Cross-posted at LGBT Issues in Sport Blog.

Financial Inequality, College Sport, and Title IX: Reflections on the NCAA Scholarly Colloquium

I'm just back from the NCAA Convention, where I attended the Scholarly Colloquium for the first time in my capacity as a member of the board charged with running the Convention's annual academic conference.  As it turns out, that first time will also be my last.  On the eve of the Colloquium, NCAA officials announced that it was discontinuing support for the Colloquium, as well as the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, which is also put out by our board.  Some have speculated that this decision was not about financial considerations and scholarly "impact," but more about the NCAA's unwillingness to subsidize scholarly criticism of the college sport enterprise (see, e.g., here or here).  A not entirely unreasonable point of view, I guess, though it's certainly disappointing that the NCAA and its members will miss the opportunity going forward to engage in constructive, critical dialog within the framework of the Convention.  

This year's Colloquium is a case in point.  Several panels of scholars, not to mention a few university presidents, provided various perspectives on the Colloquium theme, Financial Inequality in College Sport. From these presentations, I came away with a much clearer picture of the economics of college sport, and what economic disparities within sport mean for student-athletes and other students.  For example, while it wasn't news to me that Division I schools outspend  Division II schools, or that within Division I, FBS institutions outspend their FCS counterparts by exponential sums, I was surprised to see the economic disparities even within conferences of similarly-situated schools.  In the Big Ten Conference, for example, Ohio State spends $132 million on athletics, or  2.7 times as much as the lowest-spending member of that same conference.  No wonder there's an arms race of spending.  Schools with an economic advantage can shore up that advantage by hiring an army of support staff (including, as we heard in one example, a "sleep consultant" to make sure the football team would be well-rested despite traveling across two time zones to the site of a bowl game) and other amenities.  Perhaps more importantly, they can afford to purchase football wins against schools from weaker conferences and the FCS subdivision, in order to ensure eligibility to the revenue-generating bowl games.  (Oklahoma State's 84-0 win over Savannah State was a much discussed example.) These kinds of investments, of course, drive up spending in the conference overall, who have little change of recouping their exorbitant investment unless they hang in there with the big spenders.

While this year's Colloquium panels did not include a specific focus on Title IX (though past year's Colloquiums have done so, see, e.g.), they certainly helped contextualize the economic situation in which Title IX decisions must take place.  The presentations underscored for me the relationship between the financial inequality among schools and the financial inequality within schools, since the arms race spending, driven by economic pressure to keep up with big spenders, results in more resources allocated to the sports with revenue potential, which are, primarily, two men's sports -- football and basketball.  When a school like Colorado State goes in the hole to build a new football stadium, this not only diverts money toward the football program, but creates economic pressure to keep its football team viable for as long as the debt on the stadium exists.  It sets a men's sport as a permanent priority, driving a wedge of perpetual inequality between one (men's) sport and the rest.  For these reasons, I agreed with a number of Colloquium presenters who called on the NCAA to press Congress for the authority to more tightly control athletics spending.  (Presently, antitrust laws would prohibit the NCAA for doing so, which is why Congress needs to get involved).  Financial and academic integrity were the primary reasons for this proposed reform, but gender equity goes on the list as well. 

Whether or not the NCAA agrees with the content of this year's Colloquium, one thing is clear: the conversation about college athletics reform must continue.  I'm grateful for the past six years in which the NCAA has supported the Scholarly Colloquium.  Now it's time to look for new opportunities to promote academic discourse on college sports. 

NCAA Reports on Status of Women

Commemorating the Title IX's 40th anniversary year, the NCAA published a report on the status of women in college athletics.  Authored by Amy Wilson, the report focuses on three areas: participation opportunities, resource allocation, and leadership opportunities. Regarding participation, the report provides current data on the exponential rise on women's college and high school opportunities in the last 40 years.  While women now have over 191,000 athletic opportunities at the college level, up from 64,000 30 years ago, women's opportunities amount to 43% of the total, despite the fact that women constitute a 54% majority of college undergraduates overall.  This graph from the report provides a nice visual aid to help refute any suggestion that women's lack of interest in sports is the reason for this gender gap.  Over 3 million women play high school sports, so a pool of potentially interested and qualified recruits would clearly support the addition of new collegiate opportunities for women.

The report also contains participation data broken down by division, and includes data on diversity as well.

In terms of  resource allocation, the report demonstrates that a gender gap persists in this area as well.  Universities in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I spend 2.5 times as much on men's sports than women's, and men's sports receive the lion's share of resources in other divisions as well.  In every division, women's share of resources was closer to equitable in schools without football. 

Lastly, in terms of leadership opportunity, the report confirms that the gender gap among college coaches still persists.  The only good news in this area is that at least this gap seems to be holding steady, rather than widening in recent years, according to data cited from Carpenter & Acosta's longitudinal study.
Women comprise 19%  of college athletic directors, up 3% from data collected 15 years ago.  The gap in leadership is even wider for minority women.



In all, the report shows progress but persistent gender inequality in college sports, confirming the pervasive view among Title IX advocates, that the law's 40th anniversary provides an opportunity not only to celebrate, but also to take stock of how much more remains to do.