University of Montana Football Players Linked to Wave of Sexual Assaults

An article in Huffington Post describes an alarming series of sexual assaults involving football players at the University of Montana. Most recently, an incident in which multiple football players are accused of drugging and raping two female students has produced felony charges and one admission of guilt. This incident has also apparently brought to light two prior allegations of rape committed by football players, that were reported to the University but which the University did not investigate or pursue disciplinary action.

The University defended its failure to respond on the erroneous belief that it is not obligated to address incidents between students that occur off campus, as well as some inexplicable belief that it is somehow prevented by law from reporting incidents of assault to local police. The university is also being criticized for following up with the football coach, but not the victims, and of helping accused football players find legal representation with a local "powerful" law firm.

An independent investigation is ongoing, which has produced preliminary findings suggesting that the University has a "gap" in its reporting of sexual assault. This week, the University hosts a public meeting on date rape. We'll have to wait and see whether this investigation and increased focus on sexual violence brings more incidents to light, and whether any of the victims pursue litigation under Title IX challenging the University's deliberate indifference to sexual assault.

Montana Adds Softball

A while ago, we mentioned University of Montana's plans to add women's softball. By way of update, here it's reported that the Regents have approved a plan to raise the student athletic fee (by $12.50 per year) thereby confirming the funding source for Montana's softball initiative. Student government also approved the fee increase, though leaders expressed reservation that the money be earmarked for Title IX compliance.

Adding softball was the right thing to do. Women make up 51.7% of the undergraduate population at Montana, but receive only 42.7% of the athletic opportunities, in a total of 6 sports. By my calculation, Montana would have to add 76 athletic opportunities for women to achieve proportionality. Softball is a start. It certainly improving their chances of demonstrating compliance with prong 3 in the meanwhile, as the decision satisfies to demonstrated unmet interested and ability.

West of the Mississippi...

Teams are being added and dropped, and schools are conference hopping.
Not sure if it's the conference hopping that is encouraging institutions to the get their houses in order in terms of Title IX compliance, but it is certainly having that effect.
The University of Montana has slightly-more-than tentative plans to add women's softball to their roster of intercollegiate sports. The state of Montana has no DI softball, which isn't especially surprising given the limitations the weather puts on spring sports, but recent survey data show that softball is the sport undergraduate women would like to see added. Though Montana administrators maintain that they didn't think they "were close to being out of compliance" they knew that they couldn't keep administering the annual interest survey and not do anything. (Not sure why they held that belief in the first place. Simply collecting data does not make one compliant.) Not sure if the NCAA held similar beliefs about Montana's compliance. In the university's last reaccreditation administrators were apparently told that adding another women's sport would be "the right thing to do." Montana is able, it seems, to read between the lines. And its plans to move to the Big Sky Conference likely pushed forward the plan for softball. The Big Sky needs one more softball-playing school in order to hold a conference tournament. But softball is still a ways off, at least three years according to the athletic director. The program is estimated to cost about half a million dollars annually so funds need to be raised, a coach hired, and players recruited.
A different conference hop is forcing another school to do the drop/add shuffle. University of Nebraska-Omaha, a DII school (except for men's hockey), is making the move to DI. It has been invited to the Summit League and given the NCAA's lifting of the ban on division hopping that will happen in June, and that conferences hold the power to invite, UNO has decided to make the leap, something they apparently have been considering for a while now. Not knowing when another such opportunity will come along, the university is making sure everything is in order for the 2012 move.
But unfortunately football and wrestling will not be coming along. The university cited the immense costs of football and the inability to bring wrestling up to DI levels without a large amount of cash as the reason for the cuts. Good news though for a couple of the so-called men's minor sports: UNO will be adding men's golf and soccer.

Montana goes with prong three

A piece out of a local news outlet in Missoula, Montana focuses on how the University of Montana is choosing to comply with prong three of Title IX. Montana's Senior Associate Athletic Director Jean Gee said Montana has vowed not to cut sports, but must address Title IX issues (in terms of opportunities offered) in other ways at a school where male students comprise 48 percent of the undergraduate population and male student-athletes received 59 percent of the athletic opportunities. So Montana regularly surveys and interviews its female students about their interests and abilities in various sports. And it's not just CYA stuff. Montana administrators realize that the popularity of softball at the high school level and the lack of a DI program at a state school means Montana will have to add softball to its roster soon.
According to the associate director of the state's high school athletic association, JoAnne Austin, athletic administrators in the state are required to have a working knowledge of Title IX which appears to lead to an overtly pro-Title IX stance.
Said Austin:
"For a lot of schools, big time schools, football is king. Football is what makes them the money and I really think that Title IX keeps them in check to some extent. And I think that if Title IX were to go away, you'd start to see a slide back, and more and more money and funds being funneled into football...where you would literally probably have football only schools."
Not sure if there would be football-only schools, but I do think there would be some significant backsliding.