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Legal EqualsTitle IX was supposed to give women athletes the same opportunities as men. It's been 30 years. Are we there yet?By Dave Benson of The News-Sentinel
But then they look at male team members, sprawled out one to a seat. Granted, the junior varsity men's team has to sit double on these trips, but Schaefer would like to have the same level of comfort that the men's varsity enjoys. "The guys get more seats on the bus," she said. "That kind of ticked us off." A generation ago, Schaefer would not have been on the bus. In the days before Title IX, there were few college sports teams for women, and no athletic scholarships. Now, as Title IX heads into its 30th anniversary Sunday, Schaefer has the opportunity to be on a team and attend college on an athletic scholarship. "I think opportunity is the key word," Indiana University women's basketball coach Kathi Bennett said. "There are so many more opportunities to participate in sports now, thanks to Title IX." Schaefer's bus seating incident is a subtle form of discrimination, but it is inconsequential when compared to what other female athletes must face. Though there is more opportunity now than in pre-Title IX days, a six-month investigation by The News-Sentinel shows female athletes still have not reached parity with male athletes in college and high school sports programs. News-Sentinel research shows: * Women lag behind their male counterparts in money spent on their programs. For every $1 spent for a male athlete, only 49 cents is spent on a female athlete among Big Ten schools. High schools, which also come under Title IX rules, don't keep data about expenditures by gender, and no one is making them. * Coaches of women's college teams have lower salaries than men's coaches. Among Indiana's Division I schools, the average annual salary for the coach of a women's team is $37,302, while male coaches of men's teams average $53,497 a year. Locally, the disparity is not as wide, with only a $2,500 difference between coaches of men's and women's teams. * The number of women coaching is significantly smaller than the number of men. The reasons are many. Yet Title IX has provided opportunities for female athletes. Women now have the chance to play in first-class facilities. They can receive the best in training and sports medicine. They can become coaches. And some can receive athletic scholarships. * * * Title IX becomes law Title IX was signed into law by President Richard Nixon as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The passage of Title IX represented a years-long battle for equality that was spearheaded by former Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. The Department of Education, through its Office for Civil Rights, enforces the law. A year after Title IX became law, women -- for the first time -- received college athletic scholarships. The University of Miami in Florida awarded 15 to women in golf, swimming, diving and tennis. In 2000-01, universities in the Big Ten Conference handed out 42.2 percent of their athletic scholarship dollars to women. At Indiana's other Division I schools, the percentage of scholarship dollars given to women was 47.1. "I think, financially, my family would struggle a little bit, with four kids, trying to put them all through college," said Snider High School senior volleyball and basketball player Jasmine Fullove, who will attend the University of Tennessee on a volleyball scholarship. "I think without an athletic scholarship it would be hard on my parents." Thirty years since Title IX's passage, women have come a long way. Swimmer Donna De Varona won a gold medal in the 1964 Olympic Games, but could not get a college athletic scholarship. * * * There's more work to do Female athletes among Big Ten and Indiana schools are still not involved in athletics proportionate to their enrollment. This may be a matter of choice, but Donna Lopiano, executive Director of the Women's Sports Foundation doesn't think so. According to Lopiano, nationwide, women make up 54 percent of the student body at colleges and universities, but have 40 percent of the participation opportunities in athletics. "We're not even close to meeting the needs of female athletes," she said. "We've been at it 30 years. Why is it taking so long? Schools just aren't exhibiting a commitment to women's sports. "In addition to female athletes not getting the participation opportunities they deserve, the benefits and treatment they receive are still unequal. When people ask me how far we've come, I say we're halfway there." Statistics confirm Lopiano's take on progress. Women made up 50.2 percent of the undergraduate population at Big Ten universities in 2000-01, but received 47.3 percent of the athletic participation opportunities. In Indiana, women made up more than half of the undergraduate population in 2000-01, but represent only 42.8 percent of the athletic population. Just two Big Ten universities, the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa, spent more on their entire women's athletic budget than what they spent on football alone in the 2000-01 school year. In contrast, Valparaiso, Evansville and IUPUI each spent more on women's athletics than on men's athletics. The lack of Division-I football may be a reason why. "If you're at the Division-I level, that's a tremendous source of expense for institutions," Valparaiso Athletics Director Bill Steinbrecher said. "Football has a tremendous impact on what institutions can spend on other sports." * * * Enforcing Title IX The key to Title IX's effectiveness is its enforcement. The Office for Civil Rights has three tools to do so: * The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act form. All colleges and universities are required to complete this questionnaire annually, which collects data on undergraduate enrollments and numbers of male and female athletes and coaches. High schools do not have to complete the form. * When a college is suspected of violating Title IX, a complaint can be filed, and the Office for Civil Rights will investigate. * If a complaint is deemed legitimate, the office gives the institution 90 days to comply, after which it can eliminate a school's federal funding. This has never been done. The Office for Civil Rights measures compliance in the following areas: * Opportunities for men and women to participate in sports. They must be substantially proportionate to their undergraduate enrollments. * An institution's history of expanding opportunities for its under-represented sex, usually women. * How an institution accommodates students' interests and abilities. The opportunities don't have to be equal. But they must be equitable. Monitoring compliance is cursory because of the Office for Civil Rights' workload. It's inundated with all types of complaints, not just those alleging Title IX violations. Of 5,000 civil rights complaints investigated by that office in 2001, only 313 of them dealt with Title IX, according to Department of Education spokesman Rodger Murphey. With 718 employees, the office conducted two Title IX compliance reviews in 2001 and six in 2000. The reviews follow up on whether a school has corrected its Title IX violation. "We're required by law to respond to every complaint," Murphey said. "We would do more compliance reviews if we had the resources." Lopiano questions the office's investigatory work and said it has never withheld a school's federal funding. "To give you an example, say a school receives $2 million in federal aid. Why not scare the hell out of schools and remove federal funds? That methodology is the cheapest thing for them to do. You do it just once and the other schools are scared. "Neither have they done the job in terms of regular investigations. There is a real need there. The OCR is doing the minimum it has to do," Lopiano said. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), college sports' largest governing bodies, have chosen to stay out of how Title IX should be enforced or how schools violating the law should be punished. "We don't have an official position on how institutions get in compliance with Title IX," said Rosie Stallman, the NCAA's director of education outreach. "I think one of the most solid statements coming from the NCAA was from the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force. It gave a definition of gender equity." That definition is: "An athletics program can be considered gender equitable when the participants in both the men's and women's sports programs would accept as fair and equitable the overall program of the other gender. No individual should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, institutionally or nationally, in intercollegiate athletics." Would Indiana Tech's men's basketball team accept sitting two to a seat? It's possible. The junior varsity team usually hits the road with the varsity, and the JV players have no problems sitting two to a seat according to Warriors men's coach Jason Kline. But then there is the question of leg room. "We have some guys who are 6-7, 6-8," Kline said. "They usually sit by themselves because they need the leg room." Still, Schaefer dreams of being able to stretch out on her very own seat one day. "Coach (Gary) Cobb did stick up for us one time this year and told the guys it doesn't always have to be the girls doubling up," she said. "I guess it's just something that happens and no one really knows why or really cares to change it until someone gets really mad and decides to do something about it." What is Title IX?Title IX was passed as part of the Educational Amendments of 1972. It sought to end discrimination on the basis of gender. The most important part of Title IX is section 1681(a) which reads: "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." Is Title IX only for athletics? No. Any education program or activity -- from band to academic teams to school plays -- is subject to Title IX. What institutions are affected? Schools have been the most affected by Title IX. The biggest impact has been felt by colleges and universities. Also, high schools, junior high schools and even elementary schools are subject to Title IX. How is Title IX enforced? The Department of Education, through the Office for Civil Rights, can enforce Title IX by conducting compliance reviews or by investigating complaints. Both procedures take 90 days. The Office for Civil Rights gives itself an additional 90 days to resolve violations by obtaining a voluntary compliance agreement from the institution and an agreement on the steps taken to achieve compliance. Sometimes even this is not enough to get compliance. The Office for Civil Rights can deny an institution federal funds if it does not comply with Title IX, although it has yet to do this. Lawsuits can also be filed against an institution. How is Title IX specifically applied to athletics? The Office for Civil Rights looks at three areas in athletics: * Reasonable opportunities for financial assistance to males and females in proportion to the number of students of each sex. * Equal opportunities in areas such as equipment and supplies, scheduling, travel and per diem expenses, coaching, academic tutoring, coaches' and tutors' salaries, as well as locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities, medical and training services and facilities, housing, dining and publicity. * The interests and abilities of its student population in selecting sports and levels of competition available to both sexes. The Office for Civil Rights has established a three-part test to determine if institutions are in compliance: * Scholarship numbers for male and female athletes should be in proportion to the enrollment numbers of male and female students. * The institution should have a history and continuing practice of program expansion for female athletes. * Institutions should take into consideration the interests and abilities of their female students when looking into program expansion for female athletes. An institution has to satisfy only one of these tests to be in compliance. Who's participating?The following is a look at the percent of female enrollment compared to the percent of female athletes at the school for the 2000-01 school year.Big Ten Colleges Indiana U 54 46 Michigan State 54 52 Northwestern 52 47 Ohio State 50 45 Penn State 47 46 Purdue 42 42 U of Illinois 47 42 U of Iowa 55 45 U of Michigan 51 50 U of Minnesota 53 49 U of Wisconsin 53 53 Average 51 47 State Colleges Ball State 53 43 Butler 63 39 Evansville 60 50 Indiana State 52 46 IUPUI 58 52 Notre Dame 46 45 Valparaiso 55 35 Average 55 44 Avg. w/out ND 57 44 Local Colleges Huntington 60 45 IPFW 56 43 Manchester 54 32 Tri-State 29 27 Saint Francis 68 28 Indiana Tech 54 37 Taylor FW 56 38 Average 54 36 -- Figures compiled by Jon Swerens | ||||||||||
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