Celebrity Parents - 13 Pics

ESPN Profiles Case of Pregnancy Discrimination in High School Sports

Via Womenstake (among other blogs) I learned that ESPN recently profiled a case of discrimination against a pregnant high school athlete in an episode of Outside the Lines. Mackenzie McCollum was a star setter on her high school volleyball team in Fort Worth, Texas, until. But when the school officials learned that Mackenzie is pregnant (from the parent of a teammate in whom Mackenzie had confided), they refused to let her play until she secured clearance from a doctor, citing a district policy. Her coach subsequently informed her team that she was pregnant, in violation of student privacy law. After Mackenzie produced a doctor's note clearing her to play, her coach was forced to let her back on the team, but he cut her playing time in half. Mackenzie and her mother believe that the district selectively applied the policy, and that the coach outed her reduced her playing time, in discrimination against her and in attempt to shame her because of her pregnancy.

Mackenzie's mother filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, charging the Fort Worth school district with violating Title IX. An investigation is now underway. Mackenzie is also represented by the National Center for Women's Rights, who via its Womenstake blog add to the story that Mackenzie's missed playing not only caused her emotional anguish, but reduced her opportunity to impress college recruiters and compete for scholarships. NWLC also points out that discrimination against pregnant students (not just athletes) is common, and few people realize that it is prohibited by Title IX. In fact, it seems to me that the only time there is public pressure to comply with this aspect of the law is when ESPN runs an OTL special on it!

Helpfully, the National Women's Law Center has a resource page with guidance for schools and students on how to accommodate, protect, and nurture students who are pregnant or parenting. The NCAA has also addressed the issue of pregnant student-athletes, and produced these additional resources found here.

Title IX dads

In what is being called a love letter to Title IX, writer, editor and father Mark Schmitt penned his tribute to Title IX, his daughter, Little League and social change last week in a very nice column about the legislation in his magazine The American Prospect.
The people at Bitch magazine found Schmitt's piece compelling and blogged about it and Title IX more generally. Anna Clark included excerpts from the American Prospect piece in which we see Schmitt, an admitted sport outsider, appreciate the effects of the social change that occured in the 1970s: his daughter is now a catcher on her Little League team. This point of view--the outsider--is particularly interesting, and somewhat unique, in the discourse on girls' sports and the role of fathers. Clark cites some of this research as well: that fathers with sport-playing daughters can be vehicles for support of girls' sports. (A view I have certain issues with--but we'll save that for another time.)
What is interesting is that Schmitt identifies not as a Little League Dad but as a Title IX Dad. Title IX dads seem to understand the social change aspect of the legislation and see the broader issues. Sport dads who support Title IX are probably a little more narrow in their vision of the legislation. They see what it does for their individual daughters. We should not forget the father in Nevada who made Title IX claims when the high school athletic association attempted to move girls' soccer to its traditional season (fall) which would have put his own daughter in the awkward position of having to choose between soccer and volleyball. He was not a Title IX dad. [Not all sport dads are like this, of course.]
Clark gives us a shout-out to us and for that we are thankful. [She thinks we're fascinating--well the blog at least!] But we wouldn't be the responsible bloggers we strive to be if we didn't make one little correction to Clark's connection between Title IX and Little League. The Little League lawsuit was not a direct result of the passage of Title IX because Little League, Inc is not subject to Title IX. Certainly the passage and the lawsuit were part of the overall climate that engendered more support of girls' and women's access to sport in the 1970s.
And the women of NOW--who were integral in the lawsuit--were actually not the first to make the connection between Title IX and sports. Women's sports advocates saw the possibilities the legislation offered for increasing funding of and opportunities in women's sports in educational institutions almost immediately.

NCAA Releases Resources and Model Policies Regarding Pregnant Student Athletes

As we noted last summer, the NCAA responded to concern for recent instances of discrimination against pregnant student athletes by deciding to employ an informational approach rather than regulation to assist its member institutions avoid violating Title IX's protections for pregnancy. True to its word, the NCAA has now published a "toolkit" that includes resources like information about the physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy, medical information on the safety of exercise and training during pregnancy, and model language for including in the institution's athlete handbook. The toolkit also includes a Model Policy that member institutions can adopt as their own approach for dealing with pregnant and parenting student athletes.

Specifically, by adopting the Model Policy, member institutions agree to a presume that a pregnant athlete is able and entitled to participate fully on the team. Only in cases where medical evidence demonstrates that her participation would be unsafe may her participation be limited. The Model Policy also ensures that universities cannot make athletes sign contracts not to get pregnant or revoke scholarships because of pregnancy. Moreover, the Model Policy clarifies that athletic departments must regard pregnant student athletes like any other athlete with a temporary disability, honoring medically excused absences and temporary medical leave, making reasonable modifications to the training and workout regimen, and providing medical assistance, counseling, and rehabilitation services. Recognizing that discrimination against pregnant athletes is a broader issue than just whether or not the athlete is barred from playing or receiving her scholarship, the Model Policy also protects pregnant athletes from harassment, retaliation, threats, pressure and shame. The Model Policy also affirms that discrimination on the basis of one's status as a parent is expressly prohibited as well. So, male as well as female student athletes are protected against losing their scholarships because of their status as parents.

The Model Policy is commendable for its breadth, for its strong position on inclusion of pregnant athletes, and for its strong statement against discrimination against parenting students regardless of gender. Because the policy is really just a clarification of what Title IX already requires, it is in the interest of colleges and universities to adopt and implement the Model Policy and to avail themselves of the additional resource the toolkit provides.

Two Title IX Notes in the Wisconsin Women's Law Journal

The new issue of the Wisconsin Women's Law Journal contains two student-written pieces that address different aspects of Title IX.

The first, by Madeline E. McNeeley, argues that educational institutions should do more to protect pregnant and parenting girls from discrimination, as the law requires. Among other forms of discrimination that McNeeley describes, she points out how the No Child Left Behind Act creates incentives for schools to fail or expel pregnant and parenting students (often citing attendance problems) by tying federal funding to students' academic performance. Schools are often willing to work with disabled or ailing students by providing homebound instruction and other assistance, but they would rather not encourage pregnant/parenting students to stay in school and give them the help they need to lift up their grades and test scores because there is too much to loose if they should fail.

The second, by Elizabeth S. Kisthardt, examines the Department of Education's new regulations allowing schools to experiment with single-sex education. Kitshardt encourages educators and school districts to "remain cautious" about implementing single-sex classrooms, owing to the mixed research results "regarding both the existence of the 'boy crisis' and the remedial benefits of single-sex settings." (Her advice comes too late for Greene County.) She argues that "to the extent the research has produced conflicting results, it remains questionable whether the current educational and psychological evidence should be used to justify segregation by sex."

Citations:
Madeline E. McNeeley, Title IX and Equal Educational Access for Pregnant and Parenting Girls, 22 Wisc. Women's L.J. 267 (2007);

Elizabeth S. Kisthardt, Singling Them Out: The Influence of the "Boy Crisis" on Title IX Regulations, 22 Wisc. Women's L.J. 313 (2007).