Nine for IX, Part III: The Biographies

The middle of the ESPN's Nine for IX series is comprised of biographies of individual athletes. In this post I discuss films 4 and 5 which feature two very different athletes: former collegiate and professional basketball player Sheryl Swoopes; and freediver Audrey Mestre. The former is the more well-known, but the story--which I watched twice--of the latter, whom I had never heard of, left me with a feeling of discord/agitation.
Regarding the former, though, Swoopes left me a feeling of "eh." Choosing Swoopes as a sole feature for one of the films in the series might not have been the best idea given the rather lackluster film that emerged. I would rather have seen a film about the initial start of the WNBA and its central figures--both players and administrators, which was the most interesting part of Swoopes, in my opinion.  Though she was, at least briefly, the female Michael Jordan (in part because of her deal with Nike that included her own shoe!), even the documentary pointed out that she was not the sole face of the then brand new WNBA. And, as was proven when she was out on maternity leave during the first season of the league, she was not unequivocally the best player in the league.
There were a lot of potentially interesting moments in the documentary, but--as has been the case with the films in this series--they remain unexplored. For example, the fact that Swoopes went broke. Athletes mismanaging their earnings is an under-discussed issue. Is it a personality issue? A cultural issue (i.e., is there something about sports and the potential for high financial rewards that leads to over-spending)? I appreciated the more in-depth look at her role as a mother; something that went beyond just posing pregnant for the now-defunct Sports Illustrated for Women. I very much disliked the white, male sports writer who continually disparaged Swoopes during the film referring to her as a diva. Not sure why the director and producers felt his comments were essential to the film. I appreciated the lack of sensationalism around her sexuality. But in the end, Swoopes herself didn't come off as an especially interesting or poignant character, and though she just got a job coaching collegiate basketball and is engaged to be married, she came off as kind of a sad figure who has not dealt well with her post-playing life.
More than sad--devastating really--was the story of French freediver Audrey Mestre who was featured in No Limits. I very much appreciated the the executive producers of Nine for IX chose a more non-traditional sport. But I question the place of this film, this story, in the series. No Limits is about the death of Mestre during her attempt at a record-breaking free dive (a sled-assisted descent into deep waters done without air tanks). Mestre died trying to break the record of another female freedriver, Tanya Streeter, who was interviewed for the film, when the air bag that was supposed to whip her back to the surface did not inflate (empty canister). Though I had not heard of Mestre's story, it was already the focus of considerable media attention, including a feature story in Sports Illustrated, a book by one of her husband's former business partners, and another documentary about freediving. The story is really about Mestre's husband, Pipin Ferreras, who is seemingly responsible for her death as he was in charge of all the safety measures, including making sure that the canister is filled--and their relationship.
There was minimal questioning of the involved parties after Mestre's death and no investigation because, in the Dominican Republic where the dive was staged, an investigation only occurs when a member of the immediate family requests one. Still Ferreras has been subject to scrutiny within the freediving community and the sports world. Some accuse him of outright murder, some of manslaughter due to negligence but nearly everyone agrees he is, at best, a narcissist who may have had troubles with the fact that his wife was becoming a more successful freediver than he was (he had mostly stopped diving because he kept passing out).
The evidence is disturbing. The whole film was disturbing (which we were warned about in the opening credits as the directors showed scenes of the dive when Mestre was pulled from the water unconscious). I was left wondering what the point of this film was. It was not a beautiful tribute. It was not an exploration of a little-known sport. It seemed to merely reiterate the Sports Illustrated story while adding a few more characters to the story. It felt somewhat sensationalistic and I felt like a voyeur watching it.
I think this is part because, again, issues were raised but left unexplored. Let's talk about domestic abuse, which could have been part of this relationship--especially mental abuse. Let's talk about unhealthy male coach-female athlete relationships which still do not receive enough attention. In so many ways this story mirrors that of other female athletes (who fortunately have not died) who have been trained by abusive, narcissistic male coaches who continue to go unpunished.
The series keeps stopping just short of doing something; of getting people talking about real issues. In the other films where this has occurred I find it more of an annoyance and a valid critique of the individual film. In the case of No Limits, I think this failing has moral implications that the directors and the series producers have not considered. They used graphic footage of a woman dying, used the voices of others to suggest that her husband is responsible for her death, and then cut to credits.

Nine for IX, Part II: Female reporters in the locker room

I have to admit that I was not particularly looking forward to the third film in ESPN's Nine for IX series, Let Them Wear Towels. But I enjoyed it overall. I was expecting a more narrow view of the issue of female reporters in the locker room; one that addressed the stories many of us already know--those key cases such as Lisa Olson's story about sexual harassment in the locker room of the New England Patriots (which was mentioned but was just one piece). But there were more than a handful of women who discussed their experiences being the first or second female reporter to cover a team or a league and their difficulties with access.
One of the women featured is Claire Smith, who was the first African-American female sportswriter for the New York Times. The documentary noted this but issues she faced because of her race and how that affected her ability to do her job were not discussed. It was a purely gendered consideration of her history as a female reporter covering men's sports. 
The historical footage was well edited into the movie. There are shots of the women doing their job in the press box (which was also off limits to many of them for a long time, the film reminds us) and in the locker room. (They re-enactments were unnecessary in my opinion.) The historical context was also fairly well covered (i.e., women's movement, women's entry into previously all-male spaces and domains).
 The movie certainly presents a sense of progress. And, unfortunately, this notion is not troubled at all. The level of hostility towards female reporters, even after they received access, was presented to show the audience what women faced. But being interviewed are the women who choose to stay and deal with that hostility. How many more decided the harassment and the attention was just not worth it? Access is just a first step. At the very end of the documentary, the access versus attitude issue is discussed, using the Lisa Olson case as the lens through which to examine this.
And hostility about women's involvement in sports remains--it just looks different. Many of the reporters in the documentary have kept all the hate mail they received. People don't take time to sit down a write a letter so much anymore to tell a woman who covers or plays sports that she is a whore, a lesbian, a harlot; they do take to the internet though making comments on articles, on blogs, and on social media like Twitter.
Technology is also an issue that doesn't receive much attention amidst the progress narrative. At the very end one of the women mentions that, yes, they did get access to the locker room, but no women have access to the analyst booth as a montage of male commentators is shown. The issue of where female reporters are in the age of changing media is not covered. It was likely outside the purview of this historical film, but we need to have more discussions about what it means that so many sideline reporters today are young, traditionally pretty women.
What is progress? What is access? What is acceptance?
I wonder if these are the questions that will keep emerging during the rest of the series or if any of other films will ask them a little more explicitly.

Nine for IX Series, Part I

This week marks the third release* in ESPN's original documentary series Nine for IX.The series celebrates the 40th anniversary of Title IX and features stories about women in sports produced and directed by women.
So my two little qualms before I get into the movies themselves. One, the fact that they began the series on the 41st anniversary of Title IX makes me a little twitchy. Was this in the works last year and it just didn't happen? Robin Roberts is a producer of the whole series. It is possible that her health issues over the past year delayed the project. Still, I think it is perfectly fine to just say that this series is a celebration of Title IX.
Except (qualm 2) it's not really a celebration of only Title IX, it's a celebration of women in sports. I find it problematic when all the celebratory moments and activism in women's sports are automatically associated with Title IX. They are not. American women began gaining momentum in the Olympics, for example, decades before Title IX was passed. Attributing the moments or lines of progress we have seen in women's sports solely to Title IX erases a lot of the activism and activists that happened prior to and since Title IX that was not related to school-sponsored sports.
In short, the the greater visibility of and access to women's sports is not just about Title IX, and this is evident in the documentaries in the series.
For example the first one, Venus Vs, is about Venus Williams's rise to the top of women's tennis and the activism she engaged in for equal pay for female tennis players at the Grand Slams, primarily Wimbledon. Though I knew about this activism, hearing about the details of the campaign, which she basically led, was one of the highlights of the film. I was worried that this would be a "colorblind" film, but the film makers actually discussed the situation Venus and Serena, and their family, found themselves in when the emerged on the professional scene as teenagers, not having played the junior circuit. Their treatment, including their neglect, by the media is one of the more subtle messages of the film. Though I realize they are a deeply private family, when their sister was killed in 2003, the lack of sympathy was remarkable. I remember watching the sisters that year and wondering why they weren't talking more about how this violent death of an immediate family member was affecting them on the court. I mean when Steffi Graf's father was being tried for tax evasion in Germany we heard all about it!
I was disappointed though that that film basically talked about race and then gender. In the first half it was about "Venus as Black." In the second, the theme was "Venus as woman." The fact that she is always a Black woman and that this affects everything she does, especially as a public figure in the tennis world, remained unexamined. A Black female Wimbledon champion is demanding that the All-England Lawn and Tennis Club pay women equally. That's a big deal. She was not just a woman with power in the tennis world in this moment. Because we all know that AELTC is not colorblind.
I think this film would work well in the classroom.

Pat XO was the second film in the series and was basically a tribute to head coach emeritus Pat Summitt of the University of Tennessee. This is fine. But don't expect a lot of nuance. There was nothing about the struggles of female coaches in the professions--especially ones with children. It showcased the relationships she has formed throughout her years focusing especially on the one with her son, Tyler. I found the prevailing discourse about how tough and persevering she was and how she never let anyone see what was going on her personal life a little troubling. I thought it presented a male model of sport and coaching in which women had to be that way in order to both succeed and be seen as legitimate. And that aspect was not questioned at all. Summitt did bring her son with her everywhere but her ability to do so and the work-life balance issue was never raised. I don't think a film about Pat Summitt, at this point, could be anything but what Pat XO was. But it doesn't go much further than a feel-good story.

Next up, Let Them Wear Towels, about female reporters in the locker rooms of professional men's teams.

* the third full-length release. There was a short film, Coach, about C. Vivian Stringer that is available at the EPSNW website.

Title IX Coverage Ramps Up in Anniversary Year

It's hard to keep up with all the Title IX news this spring.  Title IX's 40th anniversary is in June, and the media is ramping up its coverage of our favorite statute.  So far, most of what I've seen has a sports/athletics angle, much of it celebrating women's accomplishments in sports in the last 40 years.  While many of these retrospective pieces are not "news" per se, the fact of so much coverage surely is, so I want to make sure to acknowledge them here on the blog.  Here is some of the recent coverage of Title IX's 40th that I've seen:

• Sports Illustrated has a special 40th anniversary issue, including
• Ann Killion comments on the cultural change evoked by Title IX. 
• Beverly Oden comments on the impact of Title IX on women's lives.
• Holly Anderson praises Pat Summitt, Title IX, for gaining respect for women's sports. 
• And SI counts down the "top forty" female athletes.
• At Huffington Post, Judy Patrick summarizes the success of Title IX in athletics and the classroom.
• ESPNW profiles Birch Bayh, the Senator who sponsored the Title IX bill.  
• ESPNW profiles lacrosse coach Pat Genovese, 
• ESPNW demystifies Title IX with "Five Myths About Title IX."
• The Boston Globe celebrates Title IX's 40th.
• Helena Independent Record reports on how local athletes reflect on Title IX. 
• Daily Texan carries this article on Title IX's effect on women's college golf. 

So much media agrees -- Title IX is worth celebrating! There's still a long way to go, and not everyone is on board with the positive message (see, e.g.).  But it's great to see so much positive coverage in the media.  Title IX has only lasted this long due to overwhelming public support.  I think that the 40th anniversary coverage can only help as the law gears up to tackle the remaining challenges ahead. 

Standards of journalism and the Title IX blame game

Ebuz and I often discuss the need for greater awareness of the intricacies of Title IX--or even just the basic facts--that are free from common misconceptions. We wish, for example, that Title IX training for athletic department administrators happened before violations occurred.
We also wish, somewhat in vain, that the media would become better informed on Title IX issues before reporters and columnists printed stories about the law.
But headlines like "How Title IX Hurts Female Athletes" fail to surprise us anymore. What is somewhat surprising is when such a headline--actually this exact headline--is found on The Atlantic's web site.
And I am sure--based on the numerous angry comments--that The Atlantic is regretting running this piece by two women: a journalist and a cross-country coach. The logic is faulty throughout. Most egregious is when the authors say that Title IX has exposed more girls to sexual assault by male coaches.
There are the old arguments about ACL injuries and concussions. An argument based in--thank you Michael Messner--soft essentialism. (There's a decent amount of hard essentialism in here, too.) Because there is no mention about the general danger of competitive athletics and the injuries suffered by boys--like all those undiagnosed concussions. Or the way boys experience pressure to compete despite injury.
Attempts by the writers to get facts by experts to back up their points fail:

For female players, the gravest consequence of having male coaches has been an increased risk of sexual abuse. Pediatrician Ken Feldman, the recently retired medical director of the Children's Protection Program at Seattle Children's Hospital, says that although there is no formal tracking of sexual abuse by coaches per se, "girls will be more victimized than boys."

No studies. No data. But girls will be victimized more. Based on what evidence?
Yes, please, let's interrogate things like injury rates and types, the decline of female coaches and the absence of female coaches in men's sports, and the secrecy around sexual abuse of both boys and girls by coaches. But saying "Title IX did this" is not an interrogation. And it is not helpful in understanding the complexities behind such situations.

You know what hurts female athletes?
Misconceptions about them, their experiences, and how they came to be.
Misinformed coverage by media outlets.

I am disappointed in The Atlantic. I hope they more carefully vet what gets published under their moniker in the future.

Stossel on Title IX

When I was just a wee one, long before I knew anything about political philosophy, I would see John Stossel on television and know that he was just wrong about so many things.
You can decide for yourself tonight when FOX News airs his program Politicians' Top Ten Promises Gone Wrong. (It airs again on Sunday in case you miss it.) Number 8 is Title IX. In an interview about the upcoming show, Stossel talks about his list. The previous link is to the Media Matters blog post specifically about Stossel's take on Title IX.
We'll all have to check out the show to see the full extent of his report.

Some Reflections on the Media's Coverage of the Quinnipiac Decision

I've been reluctant to post links to the media coverage and commentary regarding the Quinnipiac ruling. This is because most of it that I've read sounds as if the author didn't even read the judge's opinion, but rather, used a generalized version of its conclusion as a starting point for his or her own view about whether cheerleading is a sport in some larger sense. Common themes included, "This judge must just think cheerleading is still about pom poms and good looks -- doesn't he know that it's different now?" "Let him try a partner stunt and then tell me it's not a sport!" "Doesn't this judge know how physically demanding cheerleading is?" "But there are injuries! Cheerleaders work hard! It must be a sport!"

Of course, anyone who read the opinion knows that physical athleticism, sports injuries, and hard work were not issues that were in dispute in this case. The judge didn't overlook those factor, he agreed that cheer athletes work hard at physically demanding, dangerous stunts. Additionally, however, the judge appropriately went on to evaluate the quality of the competitive cheer athletes' experience in comparison to that of other athletes' at QU, and finding them non-comparable for Title IX purposes. No other varsity team had to play against club and high school teams as their primary competition. No other varsity team lacked a championship that evaluated athletes on different criteria from what they had been using all season. The judge was not answering the "bargument" question "is cheerleading a sport?" He was evaluating one program, and determining its lack of similarity to other sports that that institution includes in its Title IX equation. It's not as sexy when you say it that way, so no wonder the media turned it into something else.

But this morning two articles about the decision came across my screen that I thought were worth sharing. First, here is an article titled "Victory In Defeat" from the Ohio State All-Girls Cheerleading website. This commentary is proof that some from the cheerleading community read the decision for what is was: not a dis on contemporary cheer, but a "blueprint ... that identifies the shortcomings of the current collegiate model and nearly walks the NCSTA [National Competitive Stunts and Tumbling Association, the governing body of competitive cheer] by hand towards the necessary policy implementations and other solutions needed to bring the sport into compliance with T9."

Second, Nancy Hogshead-Makar of the Women's Sports Foundation published this op-ed on ESPN.com, which takes issue with another media trend of using the Quinnipiac decision to denigrate Title IX and the role of courts in enforcing it. Responding particularly to Gregg Easterbrook's column on the same publication (in which he, among other things, cried that "playing volleyball is not a civil right," Hogshead-Makar responded by putting the right to equal athletic opportunity in schools into proper context:

[T]he results of a large body of research continues to confirm with certainty that a sports experience leads to higher educational attainment and success in the workplace, life-time lower rates of obesity, breast cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease and depression. (See the Women's Sports Foundation's report, Her Life Depends On It II). Sports for both boys and girls are an investment in our collective future that we're all paying for with tax dollars, as student loans are the lifeblood of most schools. Title IX need not justify itself. Its results over the past 30 years, allowing a new generation of women to develop and showcase their abilities through education, should calm the critics. Instead of these repeated attempts at fault-finding with a 38-year-old law, let's work together to fulfill the promise of Title IX for both men and women, and increase the number of sports opportunities for all of our youth.

Glad there was some media commentary about the Quinnipiac ruling worth sharing on the Title IX Blog this morning.

Softball facility improvement forthcoming in NC

It does not appear that we blogged about the complaint filed with OCR in 2009 out of Richmond County in North Carolina. But the allegations of disparities in the treatment of women's athletics, specifically softball, are currently being investigated. And Richmond Senior High School has promised to improve the facilities--to make them comparable to baseball's facilities.
This is not especially ground-breaking (well except when they actually break new ground on the new facility!). We have been blogging about softball facilities pretty much since we started this blog. And there has been great success in proving disparity by comparing the treatment of softball teams to baseball teams even though Title IX does not mandate such a one-to-one comparison. [Part of the complaint though alleges that the football team gets priority on the practice field.]
But I liked this particular article for a few reasons.
First, we got the list of facility issues: lights (which every other school has apparently), dugouts, locker room facilities, and concession stands.
Also we are reminded of another Title IX compliance issue that does not get a lot of attention: publicity. It appears that boys' games are advertised on a local radio station.
And finally, the Richmond County Daily Journal has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the complaints from the school district and the Department of Education. Nice to see a newspaper making a concerted effort to get all the facts.

The round-up on the re-clarification

I have to say I was a little surprised by all attention yesterday's announcement that the Obama administration would be repealing the 2005 policy interpretation allowing schools to rely solely on email surveys to show compliance with prong three received. Much more mainstream press, of course, than the initial "clarification" by George W. Bush's administration. I remain a little worried by how this announcement might play out on the larger political stage, but the press I have seen and heard thus far has been largely positive.
Here is a round-up of coverage:
From McClatchy Newspapers was coverage that focused on George Washington University where Joe Biden made the announcement. There were quotes from a women's studies professor about gender bias in measuring interest. Also interviewed was Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation who said that the survey method resulted in schools shutting down some women's programs. Not sure which programs these were. We never heard of such a situation and given that when a school cuts a viable women's program it is hard to argue that there is no interest in that sport. It is possible that the survey method prevented that addition of new women's sports.
The Chronicle of Higher Education had a post about Joe Biden's support of Title IX and women's sports generally (Biden was at the women's Final Four a few weeks ago). Biden was, apparently, quite effusive in his praise of the athletic women in his life.
WaPo briefly noted the opposition to the announcement by the College Sports Council who, according to a spokesperson, feel this is a "step backwards in terms of fairness."
More thoughts on the repeal from CSC were reported in Business Week which also printed comments from NY representative Louise Slaughter who is part of the push behind legislation to mandate reporting on gender equity in high school athletics departments.
From Christine Brennan, quotes from Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center and from Julie Foudy who was part of the committee then-President Bush assembled to look at Title IX. [Foudy and fellow committee member Donna de Varona filed their own minority report to counter the recommendations from the committee that would have further weakened Title IX if they had been implemented.] Brennan also includes, as many columns and articles have, the piece of the speech from Biden in which he says "what we're doing here today is ensuring equal opportunity in athletics, and allowing women to realize their potential--so this nation can realize its potential."
Not to pick nits or diminish the impact of this good news, but "allowing women" is a little problematic (remember Nike's "if you let me play" campaign??) and the nationalist rhetoric though brief was still a little irksome.
A video of (pieces of) Biden's announcement can be found at CNN.com. You can also see the gathering of women behind him which included Girl Scouts (not sure what Girls Scouts have to do with Title IX but...), members of the US Women's National Hockey team, and Joy Cheek of Duke who was recently drafted into the WNBA and introduced Biden, for whom she served as an intern.

UC Davis announces cuts

As expected, UC Davis will be cutting four sports due to the extreme budget shortfalls being experienced by California schools. Women's rowing, men's wrestling, men's track and field, and men's swimming and diving will not be on the slate of varsity sports next year. As we mentioned previously, Davis fields a much higher than average number of sports than its Big West Conference peers making it a difficult financial juggling act even in good economic times.
The expected savings is $5 million over five years. But the fiscal restructuring plan in the athletic department will eliminate its $1 million+ deficit and make it fiscally solvent in 3-5 years.
Of course Title IX was one factor in deciding which teams to cut. If you read the news that came directly from Davis you will see that the cuts affect 73 female student-athletes and 80 male student-athletes. If you read the news that came from the AP and was re-posted on ESPN, you will read that three men's sports got cut and one women's sport was cut. In other words, it looks like men are bearing the overwhelming brunt of the cuts, which is not the case.
Davis is required, as are all University of California system schools because of a previous Title IX settlement, to maintain proportional opportunities within 5 percentage points. It currently does so and thus cuts would not--and did not as we see--disproportionately one gender.

NYT Examines Violence In Women's College Sports

In recent months, college sport has seen several high profile instances of violence by female athletes, from New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert pulling an opponent down by her ponytail to Baylor's Brittany Griner currently serving a two-game suspension for punching another basketball player. In Sunday's New York Times, reporter Jere Longman looks at these instances and others, and asks "what is going on?" Has violence increased with the rising stakes and pressure in women's sports, as women emulate the behavior of men to be taken seriously as athletes? Or is it just our perception that has changed -- manipulated both by the growth of the media and the 24/7 news cycle, and by the fact that instances of violence in women's sports are reported against a backdrop of minuscule coverage of women's sports generally?

Longman turned to several sports experts to help answer that question, including none other than my co-blogger Kris, who suggested that the media's fixation on violence in women's sport could be related to backlash against Title IX. The perception of violence in women' sport lends support to who criticize Title IX and seek its repeal when it (like ACL tears) is framed as a problem caused or triggered by the law. This framing ignores the prevalence of violent acts in college men's sports, and as Kris says in the article, misses the opportunity to examine the problem as a non-gender-specific one. Violence shouldn't be tolerated in college sports, men's or women's. The solution to the problem of violence in women's sport isn't to stop advocating for women's equality in sport, but to change the college sports culture that pressures student-athletes to commit acts of violence or that valorizes it rather than condemning it as, in Kris's words, "third grade behavior."

Nice job, Kris -- way to represent the Title IX Blog!

One way or another?

A panel on gender equity and intercollegiate sports held at Vanderbilt University Law School yesterday brought out a Title IX founder, a realist, and a wrestling coach.
According to the AP coverage, the panel discussion focused on "whether the law requiring gender equity in college sports needs to be reformed or is simply being misinterpreted."
I choose C) None of the above. I am not sure why this paradigm is being perpetuated. [Note also that the AP writer is narrow in her description of the law which applies to all aspects of all educational institutions.]
Birch Bayh, former senator from Indiana, and the man who helped write the legislation and get it passed, still believed in the power and potential of Title IX and pointed out to the wrestling coach who cried reverse discrimination, that the greatest loss of wrestling programs occurred in the 1980s when the law was not being enforced and that the sport has seen recent growth in the intercollegiate ranks.
But it was Vanderbilt's Vice Chancellor David Williams who spoke the words no one wants to hear: the problem is football. A woman in the crowd suggested cutting down the number of scholarships football receives to 50. But Williams, noting the big business that is football (and men's basketball), said it would be very hard for any one school to make that decision in the current climate of TV deals and sponsorship packages.
It is clear that something needs to change, but it's much bigger than Title IX.

UC Davis case reinstated on appeal

Erin wished in May 2008 that the three plaintiffs in the UC Davis wrestling case would appeal the decision of the lower court to dismiss the lawsuit in which the student-athletes allege Title IX violations after the school eliminated their opportunity to wrestle.
And this week her wish came true. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit* after disagreeing with the lower court's rationale that the students had to inform their institution of the discrimination first. But as Erin pointed out in her analysis of the case, this standard, established by SCOTUS's decision in Gebser, a sexual harassment case, isn't really applicable in the case of athletics. An institution, as it restructures and makes decisions about how to distribute monies and opportunities, should be well aware of doing so equitably. After all, every school has its own Title IX compliance officer and is called upon by the NCAA on a regular basis to provide evidence of gender equity.
UC Davis lawyers were not surprised by the court's decision, but they note that since the time of the lawsuit the school (in accordance with a subsequent settlement) has moved closer to proportionality and now, they say, are within 3 percentage points. According to the settlement, the school must be within 1.5 percent in 10 years. How these recent efforts to provide equitable opportunities factor into the renewed lawsuit remains to be seen.


* In this article from the AP and reprinted in the LA Times, the writer refers to Title IX as "the so-called Title IX law." What is the implication here? That it's not really a law? Is the writer referring to the fact that it was renamed to honor Patsy Mink? I don't see a lot of other laws being modified by "so-called." The so-called Civil Rights Act? Makes one wonder how he really feels about Title IX.

Deford addresses cheerleading

When someone I rarely see says, when I sit down for a catching-up chat, "I heard something about Title IX recently," and ponders where he heard it, it means that I probably should have posted about Frank Deford's commentary last week on Morning Edition. Deford took up cheerleading as sport and its effects on Title IX. It did not seem to have a particular angle; it was not inspired (it seems) by any one events nor did he really say anything we have not heard before on this issue. But it obviously reaches more people than when the issues are presented in stories that we read on a regular basis such as the recent kerfluffle in Florida.
So in case you are keeping track of the pros and antis, Deford seems to be against counting cheerleading as a sport. Here is his commentary.

Christine Brennan: Title IX Not to Blame for "Poor Decision-Making of Athletic Directors"

Christine Brennan, sports reporter and columnist for USA Today, was recently interviewed by Real Clear Sports. Brennan's consistent support and advocacy for Title IX was reflected, in particular, in her explanation for why Title IX is not to blame for cuts to men's athletics.

RCS: Title IX, for which you've among the strongest advocates, remains a controversial topic. Is it unreasonable for critics to believe that Title IX could evolve so that it continues to encourages women to participate in sports, while also recognizing that a higher percentage of men are passionate about sports?

Brennan: I think Title IX has been a very good law. I think you could make a case that it's the most important law in our country over the last 40 years. A lot of people would argue for Roe v. Wade, which was a Supreme Court decision, not a law per se, but I think the important point is the way women are being empowered through sports, and the major role women are going to play in politics and corporate life and all facets of leadership in our country and the world, due to the lessons they learned on the playing fields due to Title IX. They are learning about winning and losing at a young age, learning about teamwork and sportsmanship. Whatever that girl you see in the kitchen each morning is going to become -- a mother, a doctor, a lawyer, etc. -- she will be better at it because she played sports. Obviously, I'm a big fan of Title IX. I personally feel it's been a very good law, but I totally understand those groups that are very concerned about what they would call the "unintended consequences" of Title IX.

I'd rather look at the choices and decisions made by athletic directors. Title IX has been the law of the land for 37 years, and athletic directors have had 37 years to implement it, but for quite a few of those years, some athletic directors must have thought it was a recommendation, not a law. So when women athletes or their parents saw blatant inequality and found nothing being done about it, some went to court. And they won every time. So the ADs then had to slash and burn the so-called men's minor sports, or men's Olympic sports, and no one wants that. That is just heart breaking, when the men's golf team, or the men's swimming team, or men's track and field or wrestling is eliminated. But I don't think we can blame a great law for the poor decision-making of athletic directors who somehow didn't understand that Title IX meant it was time to get working to create opportunities for women as well as for men.

That said, most schools are not cutting men's sports and have found a balance and are working towards compliance with a law that is extremely popular with all Americans, not only girls and women, but also especially with the fathers of athletic daughters. One of those fathers happens to be the new President of the United States. President Obama and his administration have made it crystal clear that they're big fans of Title IX and that they are going to work to strengthen the law, not weaken it. This clearly is a law that's here to stay.

Facebooking a discrimination case

Florida Parents for Athletic Equity will be following through on their decision to file a lawsuit against the Florida High School Athletic Association over the latter's policy to reduce the number of athletic contests for all teams except football.
And they will also be updating the happenings in the case on Facebook. There has been a lot of discussion (in my circles at least) recently about new technology/media and sport: Twitter, Facebook, etc. Sports Illustrated even did an article on athletes who tweet.
But this will be interesting. And helpful to people like us who read news accounts of cases and wonder about some of the facts: what is verifiable, what might have been misconstrued, etc. So it will be nice to be able to read Facebook updates on the case next to news accounts.

Conference Secures Broadcast of HS Girls' Basketball Tournament Selection Show

Title IX and women's sports advocates frequently bemoan gender disparities in media's coverage of high school and college sports. So it was nice to read about a high school athletic conference (upstate New York's Section III) that leveraged its broadcast rights to take steps towards equal coverage of boys and girls basketball by Time Warner Cable.

Last year, Time Warner aired a selection show announcing the pairings in the boys' basketball tournament but offered no similar coverage for the girls' tournament. The Section III committee took stock of this and other inequities in the respective basketball tournaments (including disparities in recognition of the winning teams) and negotiated a new contract with Time Warner to ensure that it airs a selection show for both the boys and girls tournaments. Though the agreement does not require Time Warner to broadcast the girls' basketball finals, Section III officials quoted in the article suggest this issue will be taken up in the near future.

While the media itself is not regulated by Title IX, this story shows that rights holders who are concerned about gender equity can use their bargaining position to correct imbalances in its coverage. If a state high school association do this, why can't the NCAA?

More on Pittsburgh's history

In our post on the Title IX audit underway in the Pittsburgh school district, we mentioned there had been an investigation by a local paper many years ago that discovered some glaring gender inequities.
Thanks to a loyal reader, we have the link to this investigation by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and written by reporter Carl Prine.
The page contains its own links to each day's story that focused on a separate issue such as coaching and fundraising. Many stats are also available about the state of the city's athletics in 2001. It will be an interesting marker when the results of the current audit come out.

Wrestling tries to save itself

Taking off on Erin's post yesterday about the tightening of athletic budgets...University of Missouri is trying to make itself a lttle less cut-able by funding its own scholarships. The team has been taking money from ticket sales and putting it towards a wrestling scholarship endowment fund. Not sure how they are allowed to do this--I would think the athletic department might have something to say about where those revenue dollars go. But good for wrestling for thinking ahead; too bad though about the columnist who choose to describe the situation that intercollegiate wrestling finds itself in thusly: "Tough economic times that strain athletic departments and the constant cloud of Title IX loom over the sport."
"Cloud of Title IX"? I know it is a column and not a strict news article and so there is some room for opinion, but still. When will writers stop blaming Title IX for wrestling's woes? It would have been nice to talk about how, in these tough times, football (at all the many many schools at which it does not cover its own expenses) is going to start raising money to fund itself too in case the winds shift and the Title IX cloud floats on over its head. Oh wait, yeah, that's never going to happen.

Voice of reason at VCU

Because I spend so much time berating various media outlets and their misinformed employees when they proffer false information about Title IX, I figure it's my responsibility to offer some praise as well.
Looks like we are not the only ones a little worried about the possible addition of football at Virginia Commonwealth University. A local columnist in Virginia wrote this about the rumors of a new football team under a new administration.
Paul Woody, in his dissent, provides some more specific details that go beyond just the usual pitfalls we hear of when adding football is considered (i.e. the money and compliance issues). Woody tells us that the baseball team, a regular NCAA tournament participant, doesn't have a practice field and that men's soccer--which has also had success in the post-season--may lose its stadium. In other words, the athletic department has plenty to worry about without adding a football team.
Kudos also go to Woody for seeing what so many others failed to see regarding the JMU situation:
Faced with a similar dilemma [regarding allocation of resources] in 2006, James Madison University opted to protect its football program. The Dukes dropped seven men's and three women's sports.
JMU's football program is ranked No.1 in the country in its subdivision. JMU also has just six men's sports.