By Katie Newton, Brooke Schmidt, Aeneas Peebles, Amir Daley, Brendan Pernecky
What is Title IX?
Title IX of the Education Amendment’s Act of 1972 is a federal law that states, on the basis of sex, that no one shall be excluded, nor discriminated against, nor be denied the benefits of any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. In 1976, the NCAA attempted to have Title IX revoked by challenging its legality, but the case was thrown out. Under Title IX, schools are required to respond to and handle all sexual harassment reports fairly, support victims of alleged sexual assault, and the failure to do so can result in loss of federal funding. In the case of schools that do not receive funding, they are not required to comply with Title IX. While the concrete set of rules has been in place for over 40 years, there is a lack of compliance in all areas. Many schools seek out loopholes to make it seem like they are adherent to Title IX, when in fact, they are not. Title IX is working to fix sex-based discrimination, but there is still much work to be done. In this paper, we seek to understand the “expectation vs. reality” that exists on this amendment.
What Title IX is Supposed to Look Like
The misconception of most is thinking Title IX is all about sports. While sports disparities between the genders usually gains the most attention through the news, there are many more categories that schools must pass to reach Title IX compliance. Among these include the prevention of gender violence and harassment and sex-based violence, no discrimination against pregnant women, false pregnancies, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, marital status, or discrimination against any woman who expresses their Title IX rights.
Concerning the athletic portion of Title IX, schools must give our equal number of athletic scholarships, equal supplies, equal practice and game time, similar travel accommodations, tutoring, locker rooms, and housing. There are minimal qualifying exceptions from Title IX including religious reasons, military exemptions, the admission processes to private colleges, and the practices of organizations on campus like fraternities and sororities.
Title IX Disparities Within the NCAA
Even after Title IX was established, many schools still have spending gaps between their male and female athletic departments. This is especially troubling because most teams have equal needs and roster sizes.
For example, during the 2019-2020 basketball season, the difference in spending related to travel between women’s and men’s basketball teams was over 20 million dollars for a variety of institutions.
Even though Title IX was established in 1972, it is evident that schools are still struggling to give the equal resources and funds to their men’s and women’s teams. Even in areas where women are succeeding in sports, they are still not given enough resources to continue this momentum. For example, at University of Connecticut, they are spending almost $100,000 more on the men’s basketball team meals than they are on their women’s.
The differences in resources given to men and women’s teams can easily be seen in the example of differences between their locker rooms.
LSU Locker Room Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJz1tjqJXdg
Women’s Team Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rUUjBzmpA
As seen in the videos, the men’s team at LSU receives more attention and finances than a women’s team or facilities. While some may think that this is due to the caliber of the men’s LSU team versus the women’s, this argument was combatted when Sedona Prince, a NCAA women’s basketball athlete took videos of the men’s and women’s weight “rooms” at the NCAA championships. At the same level, it was so clear that the women were overlooked and underrepresented.
This video received millions of views and national attention. Then, the NCAA gave a statement of apology and increased the breadth and quality of the women’s facilities, gear, and name recognition for the 2022 March Madness play offs. This disparity between men and women is evident within most schools as well. In fact, most schools fail to comply with any part of Title IX, despite what the school puts down on paper. Throughout all the loopholes, the clear message is that men and women are being treated differently, and it is evident when they are put side by side.
Breakdown of Coaching Staff, Salaries, and Revenues
We are particularly interested in Duke’s adherence to Title IX, and in what ways they uphold these rulings.
Among all eleven Duke’s men's sports, all eleven head coaches are men. Across the twelve women’s varsity sports, only half of the teams have female head coaches leaving six women’s teams to be coached by men. This disparity is not just found at the head coach level, but also among assistant coaches. Men’s sports team at Duke employs 24 assistant coaches, all of which are men. Not a single woman is employed as a full time assistant coach on any of Duke’s men’s teams. However, this single sex dominance is not found on the varsity women’s programs. Among 20 full time assistants on women’s teams, only 40% are women.
But is this a problem independent to teams here at Duke? Sadly, no.
In 2018-2019, only 41% of women’s teams had head coaches who were female. Yet, these numbers are not an indication of growth in the field. In fact, they represent quite the opposite. Before Title IX was passed in 1972, roughly 90% of women’s teams were coached by men. Fifty years later, these numbers have been more than halved.
There is also great disparity between the payment of staff of men’s and women’s sports teams. On average, a women’s team head coach makes $235,456 a year. Their counterparts on the men's teams see much greater income, as men’s coaches make more than four times as much a year, with an average salary of $981,474. This lack of compensation trickles down to the assistant coaches as well, as the average annual salary for an assistant on a men’s team is $160,429, while assistant coaches on women’s teams make an average of only $63,455 a year.
Total expenditures also greatly vary between the sexes, with a greater spending pool available for the men’s teams. Across the 11 varsity men’s teams, the total sum of expenses was $57,114,331, at an average of $5,192,221.91 per sport. For the twelve women’s teams, the total expenditure summed up to $25,472,405, for an average of $2,122,700.42 per sport. Thus, women’s teams on average receive only half of the available expenditures that their male counterparts work with. Yet perhaps this disparity in available expenses can be tied to revenues, in which male sports dominate the share of revenues compared to female sports, with $81,319,743 brought in by men’s sports compared to $22,351,426 brought in annually by women’s sports.
Tracking Title IX lawsuits
The University of Iowa settled a lawsuit when they were accused of violating Title IX. The lawsuit was filed by four females on the women’s swimming and diving team in September of 2020. The team was cut due to the COVID-19 pandemic having effects on the departmental revenue, but when revenue began to rise again, the program was denied reinstatement. The University of Iowa agreed to pay $400,000 as well as “hire a sports law expert to monitor the Athletics Department’s compliance with Title IX.” As a result of the lawsuit, the school has reinstated the women’s teams that were cut and added women’s wrestling. They have said they are committed to being in compliance with Title IX for the future.
Historically, these problems have also existed at our own university. Back in 2000, football kicker Sue Mercer sued Duke University and was awarded two million dollars. Mercer was an all-state football kicker in New York, and when she came to Duke in 1994, attempted to walk on. While she did not make the team, she served as one of the football managers. However, Duke coaches told the media and press that Mercer was part of the Duke football team; she even conducted interviews stating as such. WhileSue participated in all the media surrounding her position, she was not allowed to dress for the games or even sit with the players on the sidelines. A federal jury awarded Mercer with two million dollars on the grounds that Duke had discriminated against her as a woman, and because of this she suffered punitive damages.
Ironically, Heather Mercer’s father, Robert Mercer, is a large political donor to the republican party and political campaigns. He has contributed to dark money and Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that was linked to the Trump Russia financial speculation. This conservative, white, wealthy, shady man who happens to be the father of the woman who won a Title IX lawsuit against Duke University ironically diverges from women’s rights. There seems to be selfishness in the sense that Robert Mercer will help his daughter win a lawsuit but will not support women’s rights or broadly Title IX. For some, Title IX is all politics.
Conclusion
Nancy Higshead, CEO of Champion Women, depicted that “there is no place -not Division I, II, or III, not the northwest vs. the south, not an NAIA school -a woman can go and not face sex discrimination.”
From our research, we have found that Higshead accurately depicts the conditions for athletes, even in the wake of Title IX.It is evident that as it currently stands, Title IX is not achieving full gender equality and access for women and men in sports. From the locker rooms to coaching staff, there exist disparities that must be changed.
However, we also acknowledge the intention and progress that has come in the wake of Title IX to build a more equitable college sports process. While we have not achieved full equality, there has still been significant progress made in the right direction. We believe it is with commitment to action and a reshaping of our collegiate sports system that we will really see equality in the wake of Title IX.
Resources
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/frontpage/pro-students/issue…
Locker Room Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJz1tjqJXdg
Women’s Team Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rUUjBzmpA
Sedona Prince Video
https://youtube.com/shorts/TrENJuJE8zI?feature=share
Mens vs Womens Spending Link:
https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2021/mens-womens-colleg…
Duke 2020 Breakdown
https://goduke.com/documents/2020/12/30/2020_data.pdf
https://titleixschools.com/2022/01/23/eada-data/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HAeri0bRdEXOblUUvy9Zq171siE2kdp…
https://goduke.com/documents/2020/12/30/2020_data.pdf
https://littlevillagemag.com/ui-settles-title-ix-lawsuit-swimmers/
https://sportslaw.uslegal.com/title-ix-and-other-womens-issues/?amphttp…