Title IX : No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
BUT DOES TITLE IX TRULY CREATE EQUALITY IN ATHLETICS?
Title IX is a federal law that is part of the Education Amendments Act that was enacted in 1972. This law was put in place to eliminate gender discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding. The most common place we hear about Title IX is with regards to athletic participation and athletic funding. For the purposes of this blog, I will be focusing on how Title IX applies to the collegiate setting.
The Office of Civil Rights has published a list of regulations and interpretations of Title IX on what is supposed to be equal for male and female athletic programs:
1. Equipment and supplies
2. Scheduling of games and practice times
3. Travel and Per Diem allowances
4. Tutoring
5. Coaching
6. Locker rooms, practice, and competitive facilities
7. Medical and training facilities and services
8. Housing and dining facilities and services
9. Publicity
10. Support Services
11. Recruitment of student athletes (budget)
Some people may look at this list and say oh yeah, that makes sense, all of those things are pretty equal for male and female athletes. But if you take a closer look, some items on this seem to have fallen by the wayside. One specific point on this list is item 9. Publicity. If you turn on the television during the fall, you will most certainly see some sort of college football being broadcast. Networks such as ESPN work with the NCAA and it's schools to broadcast as many of the college football games as possible. Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday there are multiple games broadcast on major television networks. But where are the female equivalent sporting events? Volleyball and soccer are two female sports that compete in the fall. But you will rarely see one of those games broadcast on a major television network until the final NCAA tournament at the conclusion of the season. Does this truly fill the publicity equality standard?
The main issue here is that the NCAA is a nonprofit organization that does not receive federal funding. The NCAA makes its money through sponsorship and television rights. Therefore the NCAA is not subject to follow the rules of Title IX. However, it makes the member institutions, the colleges and universities themselves, follow the rules and regulations of Title IX. I believe this is a common misconception across the country. One example of the NCAA not handing out the same benefits between male and female athletics is with regards to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. For the men, each tournament victory nets the school's conference a large sum of money. In 2015, each victory equated to about $260,000 to be paid to the conference. For conferences such as the ACC and Big 10, the men's NCAA tournament provides millions of dollars to the conference. But what does a Women's NCAA tournament victory provide? $0. That's right, the NCAA does not pay the winning team's conference any money for winning a tournament game. Now, the men's tournament sells more expensive tickets and has more viewers on television, but do the women truly not deserve anything? Since the money is going to the conference, women's athletic programs will most certainly still benefit from the male team's performance in the long run, but this tells the females that it does not matter how well they do in the tournament because they won't provide and monetary benefits anyways. So does Title IX truly create equality in this situation?
The video above states that female athletes made up 43% of collegiate athletes in 2001. Is that equal? That number still holds true. In 2014, the NCAA reported that female athletes accounted for 43% of the athletic opportunities at member institutions. This is alarming because females make up around 57% of the college student population. There are more females in colleges and universities, but still fewer female collegiate athletes. So I ask again, is Title IX truly creating equality?
There are many skeptics of Title IX. Some people are looking past pure participation numbers and into if the services and opportunities for females are equal. Writes Linda Flanagan and Susan H. Greenburg stated for The Atlantic in 2012 " As Title IX prepare to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year, we believe that many women of our generation are ready to move beyond the comforting the comforting fiction that equality of opportunity, and rough parity with boys, is enough for female athletes. It is time to stop celebrating the raw numbers and to start figuring out how to improve the quality of women's athletic experiences." These skeptics have pointed out that female athletic often over-report female participation in college athletics. Males who practice with female teams (such as basketball managers) can be included in the count of female athletes even though they would never truly compete for the teams. Rowing, which is a common sport to add for female athletics due to Title IX regulations often reports teams of over 100 participants even though fewer than 25 actually compete in competition. Rowing has been added to offset large participation numbers in males sports such as football which can have 120 athletes.
It is clear to me that the NCAA and its member institutions are truly creating equal opportunities for female collegiate athletes. Here are a few questions for you to consider:
What from the list of interpretation also jumps out to you as unequal?
Was there anything in this blog you were unfamiliar with?
What can we do, as advocates, as fans, to help ensure true equality?
Would it be beneficial to forget about pure equal numbers to ensure there are true equal benefits?
Sean, I'll be honest. I am not very familiar with Title IX or the realm of athletics in general. However, I think you did a great job pointing out some of the discrepancies and inequalities with regards to males and female athletics. In fact, I had never thought about the fact that, even though there are more females enrolled in most universities; there are fewer female athletes. That being said, however, this quote did stand out to me: "It is time to stop celebrating the raw numbers and to start figuring out how to improve the quality of women's athletic experiences." While my instinct is to question why women's athletics are considered to be of less quality, I think this question is worth exploring more.
ReplyDeleteSean, thank you for the thought provoking blog. As a former student-athlete during the time when institutions were being forced to add female teams due to Title IX, I am not surprised by many of the statements in your blog. The one thing I did not realize was the fact that the NCAA cannot be sued using Title IX even though it is the regulating identity for thousands of school that do receive federal funding. This is ridiculous and protects the NCAA from assuming responsibility for blatent inequalities as you have mentioned in your blog. I believe another benefit discrepancy is the cost-of-attendance stipend. From what I understand, and please correct me if I am wrong, but head count sports like football and men’s basketball get cost-of-attendance checks LSU= 3,200 per year or 1,600 per semester. But, equivalency sports such as baseball and softball have their money added to the scholarship pool and will be dispersed to athletes by the head coach. Shady. Definitely not equal. Who is held accountable for ensuring coaches actually disperse this money and it gets into the hands of the student-athletes as it was originally intended?
ReplyDeleteAnother example of benefit discrepancies comes from a 2016 USA Today report which states, “Florida State brings in over $120 million in annual athletic revenue. The school has spent luxuriously on revenue sports in recent years, adding both a world-class football players' lounge and the kind of indoor practice facility that even the closest NFL team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, lacks. Meanwhile, many of the school's athletes are on teams with very few available scholarships. FSU has 21 beach volleyball players, but thanks to NCAA limits, it can only split three scholarships among those athletes. It has 189 track athletes, but they must split 18 scholarships.” While both men and women are affected by the unequal distribution of monies, overall, men’s teams benefit more in the long run through. Many school can afford to add scholarships and provide their student-athletes with more support, but this is not allowed by NCAA rules.
I personally am familiar with this topic and the annoyance of it. I do find it quite funny, in an thats how much the governing body cares way, that male practice players for teams like basketball and volleyball are considered female players. Like most of my responses I truly think media and exposure rule the perception. The perception that female athletes is poor quality and hard to watch is most likely due to its limited exposure by the media. If they showed female athletics more, than more people could watch and the female athletics monetary values will go up. Instilling true equality starts with the top. A waterfall effect would happen if the athletic directors and higher ups made things within their departments equal. Im not sure equality is the best rather than equity. In sports you can't have equality. You cannot compare football to beach volleyball. The budget, athletes, fans, and so the list goes on of differences. If your feeding a football team 2lbs of meat and sides and a whole array of food, should you feed that to sand volleyball? The answer is no, but should the same amount of time and preparation be put into the meal prep, nutrition counseling, and facility services as the football team, yes! Therefore nothing about life is equal but we all should work on the fairness scale.
ReplyDeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteGreat informational blog! I am familiar with some aspects of Title IX but before I read your blog I didn’t really know what it meant for women’s athletics. This quote really stood out to me: “It is time to stop celebrating the raw numbers and to start figuring out how to improve the quality of women's athletic experiences." This helps me put things into perspective. Yes, the numbers have improved, but that doesn’t mean that women are offered or able to experience the same quality of athletics as men. Something I have never thought of before!
Great Blog, Sean.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to athletics first-hand as I've never been involved in sports or played on a team (the exception being gym classes). However, your questions point to a much-ignored reality about how women are not only under-represented in athletics, but are, within athletics, treated as lesser-than. In light of this, I'd push a radical idea--why not promote equality and equity within athletics by dissolving rules that require a team to be single-gender and instead have teams across sports leagues and at various levels be coed? I imagine there are any number of people who'd list reasons related to potentially harmful interactions, but isn't that itself resituating men as the strong gender and women as the weaker?
From the list I find that the “budget” for recruitment may be the same but not the amount of scholarships offered when comparing male to female athletes, I want to say that coaching is also on unequal footing since female coaches and assistant coaches are not paid as handsomely as male coaches are. I definitely was not well verse on Title IX statutes as it pertained to NCAA athletes.
ReplyDeleteAs fans and advocates to help ensure equality is to keep making this a topic of conversation, support female athletics by increasing our participation and attendance in their games, being an advocate at the local, regional, and national level if we are able. Blogs such as this one serves to disseminate information and create awareness. I did not quite understand the last question…how can we forget about equal numbers to ensure equal benefits? I understand that money is not all but treatment cannot be quantified until it is about the money.
Hi Sean. I'm not very familiar with athletics or title IX. I was most surprised to learn that women don't get any money for winning tournaments. I like the idea of not looking at the raw numbers and beginning to focus on equality. I think one way for sports fans to begin to ensure equality is to attend more women's sporting events instead of just male sporting events.
ReplyDeleteHi Sean, this is a great post and to be honest I am not very familiar to this topic in specific, but I am aware of the unequal treatment female athletes receive in comparison to male athletes. One of the things from the list that I think it is also unequal among men and women is the recruitment of student athletes in terms of budget. I think female athletes do not get as much support as men athletes do in terms of scholarship or opportunities to be selected. There is clearly a greater focus on recruiting and financially supporting male athletes over female athletes. I do also think that one way to increase the presence of women's athletic programs is through media. A lot can be improved if media sports program focus and increase attention in women's sports and publicize them more.
ReplyDeleteHi Sean! Your post was extremely informative, being that I am not too familiar with Title IX. As you have already mentioned publicity stands out to me as taking the cake in the unequal playing field and number 10, support services is a close second. It is no secret that women athletics receive a less amount of support than men. I think it is time that we make more of an effort to support women in athletics. Showing up to games/meets/matches, financial support, and shedding light on the discrepancies between men and women athletics. Just because there is a title in place demanding equality does not mean that equality is actually taking place. We have to remember that we carry the responsibility to make these changes and insure fairness throughout educational and athletic programs.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post Sean! I do not know a lot about Title IX, but I would assume the recruitment process is not equal either. I was unaware that women in the NCCA did not receive any money for a win! I knew it was unequal, but I had no idea it was to that extent. I think you bring up a great point to forget about pure equal numbers and focus on true equal benefits. At the end of the day, a number is just a number. Women need to feel the equality, not just see the numbers.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing Sean! I am not very familiar with Title IX. It is interesting to watch the video that sheds a positive light on Title IX but then read your blog that contemplated if it really makes a difference or is doing what it is supposed to. I think there are many laws that do just that, they sound good on paper but then when it comes to the implementation that gets sketchy as another reader put it. I think because money is such a factor in sports it will be difficult to makes things truly equal for male and female athletes. I am not really sure what we can do as fans. If I am honest, I only attend LSU football games and some Men’s Basketball and LSU Gymnastics. Personally I could try to be more diligent in supporting more female sports.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting post. I see in difference in how much men's sports are advertised and commercialized in comparison to women's sports. You really have to look hard on TV to find a women's sport playing. I think this goes to show that even though women are respected for playing sports, they are still not valued to the extent that men are in this area. So, I agree with you that Title IX, although good, is not necessarily giving equality to men and women in sports. In order to advocate for this, I think that both men and women need to work to get women's sports advertised and publicized as much as men's sports are. As more attention is brought to this issue, I think more people will agree and want the same.
ReplyDeleteI can second Crystal in that I am unfamiliar with the information in the vast majority of this article. I understood that equality was expected but I am familiar with televised sports and understand that women are underrepresented, which is putting it lightly. Title IX did not create equality but it is supposed to be a way to move in that direction. However, there is no one governing or policing this to the extent that they should. No one holds these institutions accountable for the discrepancies. There needs to be a governing body in place that truly investigates this equality. I do agree that the equality of benefits should be paramount instead of pure equal numbers. Equal benefits could eventually lead to more equal numbers, but the numbers have almost no bearing on the benefits the programs for female athletics receive.
ReplyDeleteEquality is a concept that I think is really hard to put into policy.
ReplyDeleteThey try really hard, but there is really not a successful thing that we have.
I think also there is this misconception that if females participate in some sports such as wrestling can get sexually assaulted by participating in this sport. Tackle football is the same thing as there is the belief that if women play with men they will get groped or harassed in some way or another.
Powderpuff football is another example of how the discrimination runs deep in this arena. Terribly enough there is the belief that this is not even a real iteration of the sport as they usually play flag football and the participation is really limited.
An extension of this is how the LFL, the lingerie football league, operates. It generates tons of revenue but does not actually pay the players anything for being objectified on a national level.
Again, I was painfully unaware of the terrible discrepancy of how they can assign women sports that are "more feminine" such as the example of rowing. This is probably the exactly same thing with things such as gymnastics and softball.
In fact, now that I think about softball is another thing that goes right in hand with the idea I had put forth in talking about powderpuff football. I find it all absurd. I think this is just another facet of the awfulness of our society just expressed in sports
I appreciate this topic being brought up because I was a collegiate student athlete for awhile and these discrepancies are very noticeable. It is ridiculous the budget and resource differential between male and female sports but I think it comes from way outside of rules and regulations. There is not much room for advancement in female sports, so that mixed with the messages girls receive from society growing up, steers girls many girls away from making a sport a passion in their life. If you ask girls who are invested in their sports why, many will tell you it is to receive a college scholarship, the main perk is not even the sport and passion itself. It is almost a cycle that will be hard to break, society does not encourage strength and sports for women as well, so not as many girls pursue it, so it is seen as ok to not as invest in much in it which in turn perpetuates the first problem. That is why the numbers are not even despite the gender make-up of college campuses. Is it right? Not at all but it is not just because the lack of resources, it starts way earlier in a girls life because we are targeted by pink things, makeup, dolls and so on, not athletic equipment. To make it equal it will require raising girls who are exposed to and encouraged to put their passion into anything they want and people making an effort to support female sports.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an important topic to discuss because of false information that exists surrounding collegiate athletics participation diversity. I think it is clear that there are likely some benefits that have occurred because of this provision of the law. Forcing schools to start offering the many different women's sports is easily one of the most visible. Without this law schools would almost certainly be dropping several of the sports because they cost a lot to sponsor, but do not provide any revenue. I think as well it is important to look at the make up of the women's sports coaching staffs. Originally following the changes there were a great many women in charge of women's sports. They were paid very poorly and often had several responsibilities in addition to coaching. However, as salaries have improved and facilities are more equal, a significant portion of head coaches have become men. The societal sexism has taken effect in college athletics and men are now receiving the well paying jobs.
ReplyDeleteThis is a women's issue that I am not too familiar with, but you provided good information about it. It is ridiculous the difference in money there is between men and women's sports. It is unfortunate that it is made to seem like there is equality pertaining to this topic, but realistically it is not equal. I agree that more needs to be done to ensure equality. Women's sports should get just as much recognition as men's sports.
ReplyDeleteThis issue it dear to my heart as this topic is a major part of my dissertation. As a former student- athlete and current coach/administrator, Title IX made strides but it as a long way to go. Gender equity is right on the heels of Title IX. I love that Tigle I. Has help our girls in youth sports but on an NCAA level- there is still inequalities with travel, equipment, supplie, budgets for recruitment, and media.
ReplyDeleteI think just as you spoke on the topic, but the only one that stuck out to me on that list as unequal was publicity. Having been in 2 different Division I universities and seen all of the athletic facilities, I can say between UF and LSU the athletes are treated equally as for the rest of the list.
ReplyDeleteOne area that I didn’t know was that basketball managers can account for the number of girls that are on the team even though they don’t participate. Yes they are on scholarship, but like you said they will never set foot on the court during a game.
I think both socially and physically being more supportive of both genders when it comes to sports. If you enjoy baseball, why not also support your local softball team. Same goes for track and field, basketball, and soccer which typically have both genders on teams.
I think looking at pure numbers can sometimes take us away from the bigger picture which is the student athletes are there for an education, and sports take second. So yes I think it would be beneficial to forget about pure equal numbers.