Settlement Reached in UC Davis Case

In 2007, three female students who played club sports at the University of California at Davis sued the university to challenge the lack of varsity athletic opportunities for women. They argued that Davis failed to satisfy any of the three alternative prongs for measuring compliance in this regard. The university argued that it complied with the proportionality prong, as women made up 56% of the student body, and received 50% of athletic opportunities. This difference of 6 percentage points is close to the +/- 5 percentage point difference that is commonly -- though unofficially -- recognized as acceptable to constitute substantial proportionality.

This week, the parties have agreed upon a settlement to end the litigation, in which U.C. Davis agrees to close that gap to 1.5 percentage points within 10 years. The New York Times's coverage of the settlement calls this a "stricter standard" that could influence how compliance is measured across the country. To put this point into context, I want to again point out that courts have accepted that percentage differences up to 5 percentage points qualify as substantial proportionality, this has never has this been adopted as a hard and fast rule applicable to every case.

Moreover, I don't see U.C. Davis's agreement to bring its athletic opportunity percentage to within 1.5 points of the percentage of women as acceptance of a "stricter standard" so much as an acceptance of a definition of substantial proportionality that is more appropriate for Davis -- and, frankly, which might not be appropriate at other schools. The judge in the U.C. Davis case recognized when he denied the university's motion for summary judgment that a six percentage point difference such as Davis's can represent a disparity of many opportunities or few, depending on the size of the university's enrollment and the athletic department. At Davis, the disparity represented over one hundred opportunities that would have to be added to bring the percentage of athletic opportunities in line with the percentage of women on campus and give women the same access to sports as men. At smaller schools, that same percentage point difference might only represent dozens of opportunities, rather than hundreds. It makes sense that a percentage point differential that might be acceptable in one case might not be appropriate in another, and that Davis should be striving for a difference lower, rather than just over, a 5 percentage point difference. The university should be commended for agreeing to those terms, and for its other promise to contribute $110,000 to support the development of women's athletics through club sports.

Dropped Teams Better Off as Clubs?

The NY Times had this brief article about collegiate club teams, which are providing competitive opportunities for athletes in sports that universities no longer decide to sponsor as part of their varsity program.

A former Yale water polo player who now coaches the club team said he was initially upset about Yale's decision to drop the varsity program: "But now, I think the athletes are better off in the club model. Unless you want to be a water polo player in the Olympic Games, a club team epitomizes the athletic experience in a more pure form."

The executive director of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association* was also interviewed about his organization's support for club wrestling, and I found his comments particularly interesting in light of the wrestling community's historic opposition to Title IX, which is often blamed for cuts. Jim Guinta said that when he realized Title IX policies would not "level out" and create opportunities for wrestling to coexist with existing, disproportionately larger men's athletics programs, he has "come to realize that institutions have been using Title IX as a cop-out. The real reason they are cutting sports is to save money. So we still encourage teams to be reinstated in the N.C.A.A. if they can, but that’s rare. We’ve moved on and have a strong association of thriving wrestling programs."

One shortcoming of the article is that it did not discuss how club sports work and what relationship they have with their universities. Most receive support in some form or another (access to facilities and equipment, maybe some help with transportation) and universities must allocate this support in a nondiscriminatory manner in order to comply with Title IX. Students are for the most part paying their own way and making their own decisions about how the team is run. This is, presumably, what the Yale water polo coach meant when he described clubs as a "purer" form of sport.

* Not the National Wrestling Coaches Association, as I had earlier posted. Apologies for the error.

Apples and Oranges

Club sports at most schools are funded by a recreational services department, while varsity intercollegiate sports are funded by athletic departments. This is the case at the University of Iowa. Recreational Sports, however, can usually not afford to completely fund a team and that team looks elsewhere for money: fundraising, dues, etc.

According to the student newspaper, The Daily Iowan, the men's rowing club at Iowa has made a request to the student government association for money to buy a new shell. This all seems reasonable even though student government has never before funded a club sport. They seem open to the possibility.

What is curious is that in the presentation to the association, the team plans to relate what the women's rowing team receives and suggest that Title IX is to blame for the men's current situation of poor equipment and large out-of-pocket fees.

But women's rowing at UI is a varsity sport. It was made a varsity sport in an attempt to comply with Title IX. That has nothing to do with the men's team.

The argument that the women rowers get more money than men rowers is inapplicable in this case, since nothing in Title IX requires intra-sport equity. Moreover, team captain Meylon's comment that "Since [Title IX] men's rowing at Iowa has been on a downward spiral" seems purely sour grapes in this situation. If Meylon and others are sore that men's rowing does not have varsity status, blame the excessively large football roster the university has or the millions of dollars the administration pumps into the football and basketball programs.

I was a little surprised that both the newspaper and the team members pursued this line of reasoning. After all, they have one of the foremost experts on Title IX, Dr. Christine Grant, right there. But it does not seem anyone spoke with her.