Reversing the Trend of Declining Women Coaches

This article on ESPN.com addresses the dearth of female coaches in a way that appropriately puts the responsibility on colleges and universities to make sure that it is reaching out to a diverse pool of candidates as well as creating a working environment that is friendly and conducive to coaches of both sexes. I have just one complaint about an obvious omission. If you want to attract female coaches, you have to make sure that your institution is doing right by lesbians. No, I don't believe that all aspiring female coaches are gay -- of course that's not true. But some are. Many are. If you want to attract the largest possible pool of female applicants, you should also be asking the following questions, in addition to the advice about that the ESPN article provides about recruiting, mentoring, networking, and supporting female coaches.

• Does your institution have employment policies that are gay and lesbian friendly? For example, do you have a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation as a protected class, and do you offer domestic partner benefits?
• What has your department done to address the problem of negative recruiting? (Negative recruiting is the practice of mentioning another coach's perceived lesbianism to potential recruits and their families in an effort to gain a recruiting advantage over that coach.) Do you have a zero-tolerance policy for coaches who engage in negative recruiting, and have you stood up for coaches against whom negative recruiting has been used?
  
• What is the culture and climate of your athletic department? Are all coaches' partners and families welcome at events? Are gay and lesbian staff members as free as anyone else to talk openly about their partners and families?
  
• Do your media guides provide equal treatment to coaches' nontraditional families, or do they only mention coaches' opposite-sex spouses?
• Are recruiting materials using code words like "family friendly" or "Christian values" that may be signaling discomfort or exclusion of lesbian coaches?

See also, this article in New York Times about dwindling number of female head coaches in women's hockey. It too provides a comprehensive analysis of the problem, but fails to mention homophobia in sport as a contributing factor.

NCAA Gender Equity Issues Forum

Greetings from Bethesda, where I'm attending the NCAA's Gender Equity Issues Conference. This is a great annual event that brings together gender equity experts and athletic department staff from colleges around the country to talk about Title IX and gender equity issues. Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating on a panel about how to count participation opportunities for the purposes of demonstrating proportionality. My co-presenter Tim O'Brien and I used the court's decision in the Quinnipiac case as the starting point for a discussion about the importance about looking past the numbers and assessing whether those numbers reflect actual, meaningful athletic opportunities. We also talked about some of the egregious examples of reporting violations and roster manipulation that the New York Times wrote about last week. We definitely addressed those issues as well. David Moltz covered the presentation for Inside Higher Education, so even if you couldn't attend, you can read all about it!

Other panels have addressed such hot topics as pay equity, prongs two and three compliance, diversity and inclusion, retaliation, and emerging sports. We also had a brilliant keynote address by Mariah Burton Nelson on the importance of implementing and enforcing policies against sexual abuse by coaches. And I had the pleasure of learning about the Athlete Ally initiative to eliminate the use of sexist and homophobic language in sport, and meeting its founder, a former student-athlete and All-American wrestler, Hudson Taylor. All in all it's been a great conference!

ESPN Magazine Profiles Homophobia and Recruiting

Props to ESPN The Magazine, for publishing an excellent profile on role of homophobia in recruiting for women's college basketball. Here's the first paragraph, which describes an example of the problem:

On every top recruit's college visit, there comes the moment of the final pitch, when the head-spinning hoopla finally gives way to the business of basketball, when the high school girl steps away from the rah-rah of all the games and the ego-stroking of all the VIP intros to sit down with the head coach. During one teen's big moment, a heart-to-heart with Iowa State's Bill Fennelly, the decorated coach of 23 years sang an insistent refrain. "He kept drilling that 'this would be a family,'" says the player, who asked not to be named. "'You should come here,' he said, 'because we're family-oriented.'"

The article goes on to unpack the references to family and reveal them for the veiled homophobia they contain. Though it presents quotes from defenders of the term -- like Fennelly himself, who defends his right to sell what he thinks his program has to offer, and UConn's Geno Auriemma -- the input from coaches, players, and scholars presents a far more persuasive case that recruits and their families interpret the family rhetoric to be "cloaking" something else. Specifically, it is a suggestion that here, unlike other programs, you don't have to worry about lesbians coaches and teammates. Backing this up, the Magazine presents the results of its own survey of current and recent players, 55% of whom said that sexual orientation was an "underlying topic of conversation" in recruiting talks.

The article also makes a persuasive case for why this is bad for the game. Unlike other forms of negative recruiting, like suggestions that an opponent coach is violating rules, or planning to leave the program -- the lesbian variety is unique to the women's game, and is operating as what Professor Heather Barber calls "subtle weapon against programs led by unmarried female coaches." It is a major factor in the disproportionately low number of head coaching jobs held by women. Homophobia not only deters some women from going into coaching in the first place, the threat of a lesbian stigma also keeps women isolated and prevents them from forging mentor relationships and networks that are necessary for advancement in the coaching profession. It is even rumored to be the reason why the biggest powerhouse teams in the game, Tennessee (coached by an unmarried woman, Pat Summit) and Connecticut (coached by a married man, the aforementioned Auriemma) don't play a head-t0-head game anymore (though the article did not present any evidence to substantiate the rumor, only that the rumor exists). More importantly, it is oppressive to student athletes, like Emily Nkosi (nee Niemann) who played for Baylor until she couldn't stand the closet any more. She left Waco because in her words, "my internalized homophobia made me believe that if people found out I was gay, they would kill me."

Ending on a hopeful note, the article echoes coaches and others calling for better education and enforcement of recruiting violations, and a campaign to raise the ethical bar from within the coaching profession. More optimistically, it suggests that the changing cultural attitudes about lesbians will eventually catch up to athletics and render the lesbian stigma meaningless there too. Veiled homophobic references will backfire when they are addressed to recruits who are looking for team atmosphere that is open and affirming of their or their teammates' lesbian orientation.

Justice Department Takes Up Anti-Gay Bully Case

Last summer we blogged about a peer harassment case filed against the Mohawk School District in upstate New York. The plaintiff, an openly-gay ninth grader named Jacob, claims that the district violated Title IX by failing to protect him from anti-gay bullying and harassment by his peers.

Recently, the Department of Justice filed for leave to intervene on Jacob's behalf. It plans to advance the argument that Title IX's prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex extends to discrimination targeting a plaintiff for their failure to comply with gender stereotypes such as that which Jacob endured. This theory of Title IX has been applied by several courts in the past, but other courts (more often in employment rather than education cases) have ruled that gay plaintiffs are not protected by sex discrimination statute because they are targeted because of their sexual orientation rather than their sex.

While DoJ cannot dictate how courts interpret the laws it enforces, its interpretation is often more persuasive to courts than ordinary litigants'. Thus, the Obama administration's motion to intervene is a significant step toward universalizing a broader interpretation of Title IX that gives much-needed protection against bullying that targets LGBT students and those so perceived.

(Via Towleroad.)

School District May Be Liable for Football Camp Harassment

A federal district court in California recently denied efforts of the Gustine (California) Unified School District to obtain summary judgment on Title IX claims stemming from peer harassment at a high school football camp. The plaintiff was a rising freshman at Gustine High School when he attended a three-day football camp coordinated by Gustine and another school. He alleges that while at camp, he was repeatedly subjected to physical and verbal abuse by upperclassmen. On the second day of camp, the upperclassmen held him down in the locker room, inserted a battery-operated air pump nozzle in his rectum, and then activated the pump for several seconds. Also, the harassers repeatedly called him homosexual epithets, grabbed him while he was in the shower, flashed and slapped him with their genitals, and pummelled him with pillow cases stuffed with equipment at a camp-sanctioned "pillow fight."

For the school district to be liable under Title IX, the plaintiff must establish that the harassment was severe and pervasive, motivated by his sex and gender, known to the school district, and met with the district's deliberate indifference. The court denied summary judgment to the school district because it determined that a jury could find these elements present in plaintiff's case. First, the fact that the plaintiff was sexually assaulted and -- although he endured camp -- later withdrew from school would support a jury's conclusion that the harassment was severe and pervasive. Second, though the school district argued that the harassment was motivated by the plaintiff's status as a freshman, the court determined that a jury could find that it was instead gender-motivated based on the homosexual epithets that accompanied the abuse. Third, even though the plaintiff did not report harassment during camp, the court reasoned that a jury could find that the camp's head coach had notice of the danger the upperclassmen posed because he had caught the same boys attempting to air pump assault on another victim, causing the coach to confiscate the air pump but take no further action against the perpetrators. Last, the court found that the district's response might constitute deliberate indifference in the eyes of the jury. After camp, an assistant coach discovered the assault on the plaintiff and reported it to the principal, who suspended the perpetrators from school. Notwithstanding this severe response, if the jury agrees that the head coach had notice during camp that the plaintiff was in danger, his failure to take action against the perpetrator at that time may satisfy the deliberate indifference standard.

This case sheds important light on the hazing that goes on in many athletic programs. In addition to laws in many states thatprotect students against hazing and bullying, Title IX applies when such misconduct is also sexual in nature. School districts wishing to protect their students from harassment and avoid liablity must train their coaches and teachers to recognize and respond to incidencts as sexual harassment and not dismiss it as horseplay or condone it as team hazing.

Decision: Roe v. Gustine Unified Sch. Dist., 2009 WL 5184688 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 22, 2009).

We're sorry to see you go

It is with great amount of sadness that we report, to those who do not yet know, that the Women's Sports Foundation has decided to eliminate the It Takes a Team initiative to eliminate homophobia in sports. Run by Dr. Pat Griffin for the past five years, WSF cited budget woes as the reason behind the decision which will result in the end of the program at the end of January.
We at the Title IX Blog have been very grateful for the opportunity to see Dr. Griffin and the efforts of It Takes a Team in action. Its demise is a huge loss and certainly leaves a gap in the education of athletes and those involved in athletics around issues of sexuality and gender identity.
Dr. Griffin has posted about the cut on her blog--which she will keep writing. She does plan on continuing her work in some form. And we offer her any support we can in whatever her future plans are.

ACLU, School District Settle Harassment and Discrimination Case

The Newport-Mesa School District in Orange County, California, has agreed to implement harassment and discrimination training for its students and staff, in settlement of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. As we noted last March, the ACLU sued the school district on behalf of a former student of Corona del Mar High School, who alleged that school officials did not respond adequately when three football players harassed her and threatened her with rape. These threats apparently related to the student's role in the drama club's intended production of Rent, which the principal canceled (but later reinstated) due to the concerns about the show's gay and AIDS-related content.

Under the settlement terms, students and teachers will receive four hours of training, conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, about what constitutes harassment and how it harms people. District officials will receive 8 hours of training. A district spokesperson believes that the training "will raise awareness for staff and students and will contribute to an overall positive environment at Corona del Mar High School." The student plaintiff, Hail Ketchum, also praised the outcome, saying "no one else will have to go through what I went through."

Title IX Blogger Responds to Hawaii Coach's Use of Homophobic Slurs

A shout-out to my co-blogger Kris, who has an excellent essay at Inside Higher Ed on the fallout from the University of Hawaii football coach's use of "faggot" to belittle an opposing team. While not directly a Title IX matter, the coach's comments reflect the hegemonic masculinity in which athletic department culture -- in particular football culture, as Kris points out -- is deeply entrenched.

Training Rules screening in Minneapolis

Training Rules, the documentary about Rene Portland's anti-lesbian policies and the case brought against her and Penn State by former Lion Jennifer Harris, is screening tomorrow evening (Wednesday, June 24) at 7pm at the Walker Art Center. The movie, which will be followed by Football Under Cover, a documentary about Iranian women's soccer, is part of the Walker's Queer Takes film series.
Check out this column about the film.

School District Settles Lesbian Harassment Case

The Vallejo City Unified School District in California will pay a former student, Rochelle Hamilton, $25,000 in a settlement to keep her from filing a lawsuit over anti-gay harassment she alleges to have experienced at the hands of faculty and staff during her sophomore year at Jesse Bethel High School. Hamilton says that teachers forced her to attend a counseling session for gay students where the counselor pressured her to disavow her lesbian sexual orientation. She also says that teachers verbally harassed her, calling her "ungodly" and telling her that she is "going to hell" and that she "can get HIV/AIDS from being gay and messing with female." She was also barred from the girls' locker room because she was not wearing stereotypically feminine attire.

The school district engaged an external investigation into Hamilton's claims; and while the investigation report is confidential, it reportedly concluded that some of the claims had merit and some did not. Apparently, however, the findings were sufficiently negative to motivate the school district to preempt the lawsuit with a settlement. In addition to the $25,000 it will pay Hamilton, the district has also agreed to revamp its harassment policies.

ACLU Sues California HS for Enabling Homophobic Climate

The ACLU has sued the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in California for failing to address bullying and harassment targeting gay students at Corona Del Mar High School. Its primary example (alleged) involves three football players' threats of rape and murder, imbued with gay slurs, which were directed at a female classmate in January. Their actions were recorded and posted on Facebook, yet school officials did little to discipline the boys or protect the girl involved and essentially, according to the ACLU, were dismissive of the matter. Other examples of a homophobic climate at Corona Del Mar, which has worsened in the wake of the Prop 8 campaign, is the school's decision to cancel a student production of gay-themed musical Rent. The principal later reversed the decision, likely due to student outcry and national media attention it received, however, the ACLU's complaint alleges that the students involved were retaliated against for going to the press.

In addition to a Title IX deliberate indifference to harassment claim, the complaint also invokes the federal and state constitution's equal protection clauses and California's education statute, which enumerates sexual orientation as a category protected from discrimination. Plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages and other remedies including a complaint filing process at school, diversity training for students and staff, designated staff contacts for harassed students, and a survey of attitudes toward sexual orientation.

Training Rules to Premier at Philadelphia Cinefest

A documentary about Harris v. Portland will premier at a film festival in Philadelphia next month. Here is the description of Training Rules from the filmmakers' website:

Rene Portland had three training rules during her 26 years coaching basketball at Pennsylvania State University: no drinking, no drugs and no lesbians. Training Rules examines how a wealthy athletic department, enabled by the silence of a complacent university, allowed talented athletes, thought to be gay, to be dismissed from their college team.

The film follows the lawsuit filed in 2006 against Portland and Penn State by student athlete Jennifer Harris. This high profile case ignited the world of women's collegiate sports and inspired the discussions so sorely needed to end discrimination based on sexual orientation that is pervasive in all organized sports.

I really want to see this film, and I hope it comes my way!

Title IX Bloggers Publish on Jennifer Harris Case

With apologies for tooting our own horn, my co-blogger Kris and I are pleased to announce that the Journal of Sport and Social Issues has published our article about race and the Jennifer Harris case.

Here is the abstract:

In 2007 Penn State basketball coach Rene Portland retired shortly after a confidential settlement ended a discrimination lawsuit brought by former player Jennifer Harris against Portland and Penn State. Because of Portland's infamous policy of not allowing lesbians on her team, her departure was celebrated as a victory against homophobia in sports. Yet although Harris's claims of sexual orientation discrimination were validated in the media, her allegations of racial discrimination were ignored or dismissed as implausible. In this article, we examine the omission of race from the discourse surrounding this case and suggest that both legal and cultural factors contribute to society's tendency to ignore the intersecting discrimination in sport and the multiplicity of identity.

A subscription is required to download the whole article, but we are more than happy to send reprints on request.

Ex-Player Brings Homophobia Case Against SMU Coach

The Dallas News reports that a former Southern Methodist University basketball player, Jennifer Colli, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the university and head coach Rhonda Rompola. She alleges that Rompola questioned her and other players about their sexual orientations, and then revoked her scholarship when she complained to the athletic director about it.

Colli, who had a relationship with a teammate while she played for Rompola, alleges that Rompola expressed her disapproval of gay relationships at the very first team meeting she attended. She also states that the Rompola frequently made reference to her players' sex lives, such as mentioning that "people were not performing well because they had not 'gotten any' the night before" and that she asked Colli directly about her relationship with another player "and what their plans were for the year to come." Two months after Colli complained to the athletic director, Rompola terminated Colli's scholarship, on the grounds that she had committed "serious misconduct" by giving "unverified" information about Rompola to the AD. Colli appealed the scholarship decision but lost. She transfered to and played for a junior college, where some DI coaches expressed interest in recruiting her. However, Colli maintains, those coaches changed their minds (one even revoked a scholarship offer), presumably after talking to Rompola.

Colli also submitted affidavits from her teammates attesting to their knowledge of the fact that Rompola herself had a relationship with a female assistant coach before marrying the men's basketball coach, who now coaches elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see what facts emerge as this case goes forward. Were Rompola's comments motivated by a valid coaching concerns, such as the effect of relationships between players on the overall team dynamic? Or was Rompola pressuring her players to join her on the straight and narrow? If so, was she acting under pressure to neutralize the team's reputation for homosexuality, which Rompola's own prior prior relationship with a female assistant coach might have created? Most significantly to the legal case, was Rompola's decision to terminate Colli's scholarship actually retaliatory, or did she have a valid reason for doing so? We will stay tuned!

[Via Pat Griffin's LGBT Sports Blog]

Coaches' Lawsuit Charges San Diego Mesa With Homophobia, Retaliation

A lawsuit filed in California state court charges that San Diego Mesa College discriminated against former women's basketball coach Lorri Sulpizio and former director of basketball operations Cathy Bass when it fired them both last year. The coaches were advocates for gender equity and had challenged discriminatory treatment of their team, such as being barred from their own locker room during a November invitational because it was being used by visiting football teams, being disrupted in their practice by the men's football team, and other inequities.

Sulpizio and Bass had also recently been identified in a local news story as domestic partners, which the plaintiffs believe contributed to the Athletic Director's decision to fire them because he had in the past investigated and inquired about Sulpizio's sexual orientation. In fact, the AD had once told a faculty member that someone needed to restore “the image” of the team, and that “lots of people” in the community had been talking about “it.” (referring to Sulpizio’s and Bass’s sexual orientation).

Before her termination, Coach Sulpizio had spent five years as head coach, a year as interim head coach, and three years as an assistant coach of the Mesa women’s basketball team. During this time, the team was successful by several measures, including logging regular appearances in the conference tournament and winning a conference championship in 2002. Sulpizio also sent a higher-than-average percentage of athletes to play ball and receive degrees from four-year schools. Bass and Sulpizio met when both were assistant coaches in 1999; Bass later became an adjunct faculty member and the director of basketball operations.

Sulpizio and Bass are represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (the folks who brought down Rene Portland) and two local law firms. NCLR's Helen Carroll, quoted in this story at Outsports.com, sounds confident as she puts the case in the context of the trend in retaliation cases (which we've noted on this blog before): “Women coaches, and especially lesbian coaches, are taught to not rock the boat... But I think we’re seeing a new wave of Title IX retaliation cases because I believe the coaches feel that they have help now with that. Before, coaches would be quiet and leave and just get another job somewhere. Now the courts are saying, ‘We’ve got your back.’”

Settlement Will Force School District to Deal With Anti-Gay Bullies

The ACLU of Northern California announced today that it has reached a settlement with the Upper Lake Union School District, under which the district has agreed to undertake a list of protective measures designed to curb anti-gay harassment and discrimination.

ACLU's client is a middle school student named Robby who "can't remember a day at school when [he] wasn't called a faggot or gay." When Robby was beat up after gym class by classmates shouting "queer," Robby's parents got the ACLU involved. It does not appear that ACLU had to actually file a lawsuit to get the school district to agree to take remedial measures. This step was presumably not necessary because thanks to Title IX and California's anti-bully legislation, the district has a legal responsibility (not to mention a moral one) to take reasonable steps to protect students from anti-gay harassment.

Here is the list of things that the district agreed to do:

• Revise the parent/student handbooks to include the antidiscrimination and antiharassment policies and the process for filing a complaint;
• Designate an employee for each school to serve as the point person for school-based harassment;
• Provide LGBT sensitivity materials to staff and discuss incidents of harassment at staff meetings;
• Hire qualified trainers to educate students regarding the harmful effects of discrimination;
• Implement the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network's "No Name Calling Week" curriculum and other programs that raise awareness about discrimination and homophobia; and
• Support the maintenance of a Gay/Straight Alliance club at the middle school.

If you're an activist, feel free to copy and paste these handy bullet points into your own list of demands!

Interview with Pat Griffin

Two of my favorite bloggers contributed to the current "Pride Month" issue of the Beacon Broadside. Helen Wheelock of Women's Hoops Blog interviewed Dr. Pat Griffin, of It Takes A Team about homophobia in sport. Griffin has recently been involved in some very interesting work on the role of religion in college sports, which can intersect with and contribute to discrimination against gay and lesbian student-athletes. I'm glad Wheelock asked her about it (among other things):

....What challenges do gay athletes face when sports and religion intersect? How can coaches, even coaches at schools with policies that forbid homosexual conduct, support their gay and lesbian athletes?

....Coaches have a responsibility to create and maintain a religion-neutral environment on their teams, but some coaches invite or pressure athletes to attend chapel or Bible studies, to pray together or listen to Biblical quotes as part of their coaching. I think this is wrong, not only because it places lesbian and gay athletes at risk, but it also alienates anyone on the team who does not share the coach's particular faith. College and high school sports are not church leagues.

I support every athlete's and coach's right to their personal religious or spiritual beliefs as well as their right to individually express that belief, but I think there is a little too much tolerance in athletics for mixing evangelical Christianity with athletics. I would hope that even in religious schools where homosexuality is specifically condemned that coaches and athletes would treat gay and lesbian teammates with respect.

On other topics with Title IX relevance, Griffin praised the NCAA for incorporating a more inclusive message into its athlete training workshops, and pointed out the particular vulnerability of female coaches to direct discrimination and tactics like negative recruiting.

Outside the Lines on Negative Recruiting

This week's episode of ESPN's Outside the Lines addresses negative recruiting in women's sports. In particular, the show covered how coaches exploit parents' homophobia to lure recruits away from teams coached by women who, especially when single, are vulnerable to the lesbian "stigma."



Pat Griffin wrote about the episode on her blog about LGBT Sport. She praised ESPN's efforts to bring attention to this subtle form of discrimination in women's sport that marginalized gay athletes and contributes to the underrepresentation of women among head coaches. But she also criticized the segment for "miss[ing] an important opportunity to make the point that initiatives against negative recruiting are gaining some ground." She notes that the NCAA has shown interest in taking on this issue, teaming up with NCLR to provide resources and encouragement to member institutions to adopt policies and practices that reduce instances of negative recruiting.

New week, new FGCU controversy

FGCU volleyball coach Jaye Flood is still apart from her team, which has made it to the post-season; the school's investigation is complete but there is no word on what was discovered.

And now FGCU has suspended brand new assistant softball coach Gina Ramacci, also for unspecified "student welfare issues." It might be difficult to claim backlash for complaining about gender equity since Ramacci was hired in June and not part of the complaint given to FGCU over the summer that has resulted in a great deal of turmoil in the athletics department. But who knows. Ramacci may have arrived in Naples and seen that things were amiss and started asking questions.

But I also wonder about an issue that has gone unaddressed to date: homophobia. Studies that address the decline in women in coaching point to homophobia as one of the key reasons why women leave or are pushed out of the profession. There are countless stories about such situations. Is Jaye Flood, and now Gina Ramacci, being targeted because some at FGCU suspect them of being gay? Or maybe they are gay and out (though this seems more unlikely given the climate at FGCU and in that area of Florida in general) and these recent administrative leaves are retaliation. Because it seems odd that a coach would be suspended for pulling a player's shirt--it happens all the time in basketball, with both men and women--unless that coach was perceived to be a lesbian and the act was thus turned into some sexual rather than an aggressive coaching tactic.
I doubt the press will address this issue and even more doubtful that the investigation will. But I think when (or if?) the findings are revealed, we will find some interesting things in between the lines.