Weatherford College to Survey Student Interest in Athletics

We have been following OCR's investigation into a complaint against Weatherford College in Texas that it fails to accommodate the interests and abilities of both sexes in compliance with Title IX. (For prior posts, see here and here.) Weatherford's athletic offerngs include one coed team (rodeo), men's and women's basketball, and men's baseball. The result was that men had nearly double the percentage of athletic opportunities, despite being a minority among the student body.

OCR has recently announced that it is terminating its investigation "based on the college's commitment to take action." According to the Weatherford Democrat,

[T]he college has agreed to develop policies and procedures to ensure appropriate information is collected and reviewed on an annual basis regarding the athletic interests and abilities of all students. The college also reported it will conduct surveys to determine the unmet athletic interests and abilities in intercollegiate athletics of its female students.

Survey results may lead to a plan to implement a team or teams to meet the interests and abilities of female students. If such a plan calls for additional teams, competition must begin by the 2011-12 academic year.

It thus appears that Weatherford will see if it can satisfy prong three (full and effective accommodation of women's interests and abilities) by relying on the controversial Model Survey. To my knowledge, it is the second school to commit to undertaking an interest survey as a measure of compliance. (See also Western Illinois, as reported here.) I predict that the survey's methodology and fundamental premise (surveying those students who have already enrolled, absence of particular sports notwithstanding) will result in the survey absolving both schools of further compliance obligations, severe disproportionality notwithstanding. But I'm happy to be wrong.

Western Washington Has Too Many Women's Sports After Cutting Football

In January, Western Washington University announced its decision to cut its NCAA Division II football program to help reduce the athletic department's deficit. While the university's records apparently show the program breaking even in 2008, university officials estimated that $10 to $12 million dollars would be required to sustain the program going forward, and considered such an investment unrealistic in today's economic climate. It was reported Tuesday that efforts to appeal to the state legislature to save Western football have failed.

The article also reports that Western now plans to reduce the size of the women's track and rowing teams in order to restore a proportionate balance of athletic opportunities between the sexes. The loss of 96 football players brings the percentage of athletic opportunities for men to 36%, which is out of proportion with the percentage of men in the student body (44%). Nor can Western rely on the alternative compliance prongs; since men are now the "underrepresented sex," cutting football likely precludes the university from claiming compliance under prong two (history and continuous practice of program expansion for the underrepresented sex) or prong three (full and effective accommodation of the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex).

The Athletic Director admits, however, that the cuts to rowing and track will actually benefit those teams, which had been stretched to provide a more-than-comfortable number athletic opportunities so that the university could claim compliance via proportionality. This is an interesting point, as it highlights the common and often overlooked tendency by athletic departments to squeeze opportunties of existing women's team, rather than creating new opportunities in new sports, or expanding the capacity of existing teams in a meaningful way. While the appearance of compliance exists, the result is still discriminatory. Here's a metaphor: If a parent buys six toys for her son, and six for her daughter, what should she do for when another daughter comes along? She could buy six more for the new child, or make each of the older children give her two of theirs. Or, a parent could do what Western and other schools have done: make the daughter break each of her six toys in half to give half to the younger sister. Yeah, each kid has 6 toys. Proportionality achieved. But the daughters' toys are clearly inferior to the son's at that point.

Take away some of the son's toys, and you can justify giving the daughters fewer toys too. Only now there is room to make theirs somewhat higher quality. And thus, Western has created a situation where it can claim women benefit from cuts to men's teams. Notice how even when proportionality is being applied in reverse ("forcing" cuts to women's teams, instead of men's) the usual discourse ensues?

Philly girls finally get championship

This story about girls' basketball in Philly really struck me. In the early 80s, a girls' basketball coach, Lurline Jones, said that girls should have a city championship like the boys who had been playing a city championship since 1938. (The championship was a match-up between the Catholic League and the Public League.) So Jones filed a Title IX lawsuit charging discrimination against the girls who wanted to play their own championship. The archdiocese of Philadelphia decided just to cancel the City Title championships rather than fighting the lawsuit or hosting a championship for the girls.

Let me reiterate--the archdiocese cancelled the boys' championships. But Jones got all the crap.

Even today as she is recognized for being an invaluable advocate for girls' basketball in the city, some still hold her at fault as evidenced by this "praise" from a fellow coach:

"Everybody was upset for a lot of years," said Greco, who had two stints as the head coach of the Central boys' team and recently completed his 11th season as the school's girls' coach. "Everyone pointed the finger at her. But, getting past that, what she did for girls' basketball in Philadelphia was remarkable. She deserves a lot of credit."

Getting past that? As if it's some black mark on her record that she fought for gender equity and came across the rather staunch patriarchy known as the Catholic Church.

Jones retired but this year the city finally reinstated the championship--for boys and girls. Only took 29 years!

Title IX discussion in Hartford

The Connecticut Historical Society is hosting a discussion Thursday night (March 12) entitled "Title IX: On the Court and Off. "
The discussion, which begins at 7pm, is part of the society's She Shoots...She Scores exhibit currently on display (through January of 2010).

New retaliation case

In Washington a former coach has filed a lawsuit against the middle school that fired her. Terra Solkey, who coached girls' basketball asserts that she lost her coaching job when she started to raise some issues over the inequitable treatments of female athletes in her school.

Solkey was also a teacher at the school and contends she was pushed out of this position as well. The Federal Way School District has asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit.

Solkey contends that no action was taken when boys who were athletes became academically ineligible to play. Also that the school's elimination of the gymnastics program was a Title IX violation. She argues that her complaints to the administration resulted in her not being hired as head coach for a second year and a myriad of petty actions to make her life in the classroom (she actually had her classroom taken away!) more difficult.

Donna Lopiano to speak at Western New England College

Donna Lopiano, former head of the Women's Sports Foundation and amazing advocate for Title IX, is coming to Western New England College on April 22 to talk about her work and reflect upon the successes and challenges of Title IX.

For more information about her talk, check out the website for the College's Center for International Sport Business: www.wnec.edu/cisb

Loss of sports at Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac College, it appears, is dropping three varsity sports: men's track, women's volleyball, and men's golf.
Much of the above article focuses on the Connecticut school's volleyball team and their reaction to the news including their disappointment that sportsmanship did not win out over revenue generating abilities. (Too bad there are no men on the volleyball team!)
It seems the women on the team will try to raise the $58,000 in operating costs.
But one first year player said she will be looking for a new school with a more solid program. Unfortunately given the economic situation many schools are facing, that search might be a little more difficult than she imagines.

NY Times on Girls in Baseball

The New York Times ran a story earlier this week about girls who aspire to play high school baseball. The article points out that even for girls who have the skills and strength to qualify for the boys' team, they often face an even greater obstacle in the assumption, rooted in stereotypes, that baseball is not a girls' sport. The positioning of softball as the "equivalent" girls sport contributes to this belief, which is rejected by female ballplayers like Marti Sementelli, a sophomore pitcher in Burbank CA. She told the NY Time assuming that baseball and softball are the same because they are both played with bats and balls "i[s] like saying Ping-Pong and tennis are the same sport. ”

The numbers of female high school baseball players is low, just over 1000 last year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Girls are either steered into softball or prohibited outright from trying out baseball when a softball team is offered, as is the case in at least one state -- Massachusetts. Yet, associations in Indiana (most recently) and Nebraska have dropped similar bans out of concern for their likely illegality. Title IX requires schools to allow girls try out for a boys team if the sport is not a contact sport and if there is not a girls team in that same sport. In light of this rule, the commissioner of the Indiana State Athletic Association told the Times he was advised that his odds of successfully defending a prohibition on girls in baseball were "zero to 50/50."

Valparaiso to add two sports

Some schools taketh away and some schools giveth.
Pepperdine cuts two sports; Valparaiso adds three sports.
Not a lot of information here. Driven by student interest, the school has decided to add men's and women's golf and women's bowling.

Pepperdine to cut two sports

Pepperdine University in California (not a good time to be a California school!) announced this week that it will eliminate two sports from its varsity line-up: men's track and women's swimming and diving. Track will have its last season this year and swimming/diving, which received outside monies, will compete through the 2009-2010 season.
The sports were eliminated because of--not surprisingly--budget issues. These two in particular were chosen, according to Pepperdine, because they do not compete in the school's primary conference affiliations: West Coast Conference and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Men's track actually had only been competing in distance events since its reinstatement in 2008 (it was cut in 1972) and appears to be comprised only of runners already on the cross country team.

Mesa College and Other Division II School Are Adding Sports

To our surprise we keep reading about schools that are expanding their athletic programs, even in this tight economic times and even as other schools (UVM, UNI, and maybe Hawaii?) are downsizing their athletic offerings. At Mesa State College in Colorado, new men's golf and men's swimming and diving teams will begin competition this fall, and a women's lacrosse team will have its first season in the spring of 2011.

It is great to see schools adding men's sports like golf and swimming, which often get squeezed out in favor of large football rosters (which Mesa State has as well). But I hope Mesa State isn't setting itself up for cuts down the road. It currently offers only 43% of its athletic opportunities to female students, notwithstanding a 56% female student body, and this disparity does not change significantly with the new offerings. That means Mesa State must comply with either prongs two or prong three, either one of which could require it to add a women's team in the future, especially if there is significant interest. Hopefully Mesa State has the money to do this without cutting teams. Otherwise, we all know that the rhetoric will be "Title IX made us do it" and no one will blame or question the decision to add teams to the side already getting disproportionately more opportunities in the first place.

The article also notes that other Division II schools in their region have recently or are currently adding sports. Adams State is adding men’s golf, men’s soccer and women’s swimming and diving next year and men' and women's lacrosse men’s swimming and diving in the fall of 2010. Metropolitan State is adding men’s golf in the 2009-10 season and Fort Lewis College's women's lacrosse will have its first season this spring. Like Mesa State, none of these schools can claim compliance with the proportionality prong.

Still more from FGCU

The climate in Florida has never been to my liking, but the climate at Florida Gulf Coast University has got to be even worse!

We have documented (click on the FGCU tag) what we thought were the only incidents of discrimination and harassment at the university. But apparently we missed some of what has been going on outside of the athletic department. But the recent suspension of an instructor in the criminal justice program at FGCU has brought to light incidents we had not heard of.

This most recent involved the sexual harassment* of students by the instructor, Jeffrie Jinian. The investigation into the students' complaints (which was impeded by Jinian's deletion of emails related to his propositions to students) has resulted in his suspension for the rest of the semester. But he will be back teaching in the fall, though no longer serve as the internship coordinator.

Other incidents of faculty behaving badly at FGCU include an adjunct German professor who was fired after sexually harassing a graduate student. A professor in the justice studies department was suspended after he fondled a mannequin and made inappropriate comments in class about investigating deaths. He's supposed to be appealing the suspension.

This article details all the cases (including the ones we have previously covered). Provost Ronald Toll said he is happy to no longer have any active gender discrimination or sexual harassment complaints. I bet!



* The internal investigation actually concluded that any one (of the seven) complaints on its own did not constitute sexual harassment but that in the aggregate they contributed to a hostile environment created by Jinian.

Changes in harassment law in just a decade

We have posted about the harassment experienced by Arkansas (former) high schooler Billy Wolfe, (here and here) who is engaged in a lawsuit against his former school district. That lawsuit is ongoing.
But this article reminds us that there were very few avenues for students who were victims of sexual harassment when that harassment was of the same-sex variety.
In the same schools that Wolfe attended, William Wagner, in the mid-90s, experienced harassment of a very similar nature to that which Wolfe endured not that long ago. But back then there was no protection against same-sex harassment and no remedy under Title IX. In 1997, just after Wagner's incidents, OCR released guidelines that applied the law to same-sex harassment.
That was the change. Unfortunately the administrators in the Fayetteville school district have not changed much. Actually, the have not changed at all. Those named in the Wolfe lawsuit are the same that turned blind eyes and deaf ears to William Wagoner over ten years ago.

Former Assistant Coach Sues Fresno State

Did you think we were done blogging about Title IX cases against Fresno State? Me too.

But the Fresno Bee reported Tuesday that a new lawsuit will soon be filed by a former assistant track and field coach, Ramona Pagel. Pagel is a former Olympian and American recordholder in shotput. She was an assistant coach of the men and women throwers on Fresno State's track and field team for three years, but was passed over for the head coach position notwithstanding her favorable performance evaluations and Fresno State's apparent policy of hiring from within. Pagel maintains that the hiring decision, as well as Fresno State's decision not to renew her contract, was motivated by sex discrimination and retaliation for her advocacy on behalf of women's athletics.

That's all the detail we have at this time, but I'm sure there will be more news and analysis to come.

Training Rules to Premier at Philadelphia Cinefest

A documentary about Harris v. Portland will premier at a film festival in Philadelphia next month. Here is the description of Training Rules from the filmmakers' website:

Rene Portland had three training rules during her 26 years coaching basketball at Pennsylvania State University: no drinking, no drugs and no lesbians. Training Rules examines how a wealthy athletic department, enabled by the silence of a complacent university, allowed talented athletes, thought to be gay, to be dismissed from their college team.

The film follows the lawsuit filed in 2006 against Portland and Penn State by student athlete Jennifer Harris. This high profile case ignited the world of women's collegiate sports and inspired the discussions so sorely needed to end discrimination based on sexual orientation that is pervasive in all organized sports.

I really want to see this film, and I hope it comes my way!

UNI drops baseball

University of Northen Iowa has decided to eliminate its baseball program. This news comes just days after University of Vermont announced that it would be dropping baseball and softball.
The elinination will save UNI $400,000 and the remaining deficit will be made through cuts in travel budgets and not filling currently vacant staff positions.

Claims reinstated in high school rape case

As we wrote about not too long ago, the lawyer in a rape case involving a high school student in Upper St. Clair, PA recently filed a brief (in light of the recent SCOTUS decision) asking claims against administrators be reinstated.

And last week a federal judge did indeed reinstate the Title IX claims.

No word, that I could find, on when the case will go to trial.

Proposal Would Eliminate Sex Discrimination in Community Athletic Programs

A state legislator in Washington state has proposed a bill that would apply a Title IX-like nondiscrimination mandate to community athletic programs for children and adults. Since Title IX itself, which only applies to schools, does not cover community programs such as Little League, this new legislation would ensure that such programs provide equal access to equipment, supplies, facilities and the assignment of coaches and game officials regardless of the participants' sex.

Community recreation departments are concerned, however, that such a law could expose them to liability for discriminatory conduct of leagues that use community fields. But that is something community recreation department should already be concerned about. As government entities, they are obligated to comply with the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, which also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. For example, female athletes have successfully relied on the Equal Protection Clause to challenge Little Leagues and other community supported sports leagues that denied them an equal opportunity to try out. Since this proposed legislation would clarify, but not necessarily expand, the requirement of equality to treatment as well as access, I'm don't think it's terribly persuasive to argue that such a law imposes too much additional liability on community recreation departments.

The financial deterrent effect

The initial threat levied against schools not in compliance with Title IX was revocation of federal funding.
It's a threat that has never been realized--never. As in never, ever.
But financial repercussions are certainly being felt by colleges and universities as we have noted in cases such Fresno State, University of Colorado, and Florida Gulf Coast University in which institutions pay out settlements or jury awards.
But high schools are also feeling the economic hit and in a time of budget cuts and tightening, being forced to pay attorney fees in addition to the costs of remedying the existing discrimination.
This is the situation that Ramona school district has found itself in. Parents sued the district in 2007 arguing that the softball team was not receiving equitable treatment under Title IX. The district has built a new field with amenities comparable to the baseball team--under the order of a federal judge. But the bigger cost--larger than the $200,00 on said field--is the court order to pay the legal fees the parents incurred, around $350,000. Ramona, like the rest of the state of California, is having some budget issues. They are being forced into discussions with the plaintiffs' attorneys about a payment plan. Perhaps the incursion of fees was part of the decision not to appeal the decision. Ramona may have taken a lesson from Michigan High School Athletic Association which was, as you may remember, ordered to pay the attorney fees from its lengthy battle against a parents group seeking equity in high school athletics.

UVM to cut sports

Probably not surprising that eventually we would report on sports being cut. With all the additions of sports, we were growing a little incredulous that athletic departments were actually feeling the economic downturn.
But UVM's announcement that it will eliminate softball and baseball after this season included a lot about the need to deal with the budget crunch. The cuts will save over $1 million annually. And the department will likely remain in compliance with prong one--a consideration in the decision of which sports would be cut.