Gender Equity Deception Discovered in Athletic Programs

A New York Times report released earlier this week uncovered the deception of many athletic programs in schools regarding gender equity in sports, distorting the numbers in order to comply with the requirements of Title IX. 

Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in any federally-financed education program, has largely drawn attention to and been labeled as solution for the unequal treatment of male and female athletes. In 1972, when Title IX was passed, there were fewer than 30,000 women participating in college sports, and today there are over 186,000 women a year – an increase in over 500%. 

The report found that some athletic programs are filling their numbers by counting athletes who no longer play on the team, enlisting women as team members who do not participate in the games, or by counting their male players as women.

Other programs are manipulating their numbers by trimming the rosters of mens teams, eliminating mens sports rather than increasing womens in order to reach the standards of gender parity.

An example of roster manipulation comes from the University of South Florida, where in the last academic year, 71 women were reported as members of the school’s cross-country team, yet only 43 students ever ran in a competition. According to the report, double- and triple-counting women has allowed nearly 50 Division I universities to hide the fact that they have fewer female athletes.

Quinnipiac University was sued in a class action lawsuit last August for failing to adhere to Title IX regulations, manipulating numbers in the list of male athletes and replacing the women’s volleyball team with competitive cheerleading in order to build the roster of female athletes.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic swimmer and the senior director of advocacy at the Women’s Sports Foundation, told The New York Times “The fraud is disheartening. Intercollegiate athletics are rare educational opportunities, subsidized with our tax dollars, which deliver superior lifelong returns on investment. When an athletic department engineers itself to produce only the appearance of fairness, they flout the law and cheat women.” 

Image via Flickr user Ballin' at Da Beach under Creative Commons 3.0

Previously posted on FMF blog 

What we can learn from UCSD

This is a great post from Kat.

The events that have taken place at UC San Diego have been atrocious. Kat’s first hand account of what has happened is a real privilege for us to read. It is important as feminists that we continue to understand why these events happen, and what we can do to prevent them. This is not just an isolated incident, but evidence of oppression still common to women and people of color today.

In the words of our UCSD's VOX & Choices affiliate leaders:
"This is flat-out intimidation and HATE at work.

While this situation targets black students, it is NOT just a black issue. The undercurrents of violence are ones that can be felt by ALL PEOPLE.

Ending one oppression means ending ALL oppressions. The battles against sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism, and so on, cannot be fought individually. They are all intrinsically connected, all a part of the same struggle."

In 1997, civil rights and women's rights leaders lost the battle to save affirmative action in California and Proposition 209 was passed. Since then the state's public university system has become more and more intolerant and hostile towards people of color and women.
Racism still persists. The hateful actions taken by students at UCSD highlight the structural racism in the UC system. On top of harvesting an environment where these events can happen, the campus also lacks a diverse student population. According to the Examiner, San Diego enrolled the fewest number black freshmen last fall and black students make up about 1.6% of the student body, which is comprised of about 23,000 students. These numbers are what need to change in order for these events to stop happening.

Losing Affirmative Action was devastating to California and its future, our future. We need to hold public institutions accountable for creating equal opportunity and ensuring a diverse, safe, vibrant campus communities. If UCSD -- and all UC's -- made serious commitments to creating rich diverse learning environments, these events could have been avoided.

Students at UCSD, women's rights and civil rights student groups and a broad coalition of other student groups, have engineered walk-outs, sit-ins, and other actions to condemn these actions and demand real systemic change to create long-term diversity plans and guarantee an end to the hostile environment at UCSD and campuses across the state.

Student leaders statewide are taking solidarity actions -- walk-outs and demonstrations -- with our sisters and brothers at UCSD to demand a statewide inventory of campus diversity -- or more importantly, a lack thereof in student, staff, and faculty populations and policies.

As a student not to far from UCSD this behavior worries me…I will continue to follow what is happening and stay in contact with Kat and affiliates.

You can read UCSD’s black student unions statement and list of demands here.