New York Times Examines Coach Salary Disparity in Basketball

Tonight, Baylor and Notre Dame will play for the NCAA championship in women's basketball, so the New York Times chose today to run an article about salary disparities between coaches of men's and women's teams. According to the article, the coaches of women’s college basketball teams are paid about one-half or one-third of the amount of the men’s basketball coach. There are a few exceptions, like Tennessee's Pat Summitt, whose $2.2 million annual salary is actually more than her men's team counterpart, and Geno Auriemma, who makes two-thirds of UConn men's team coach Jim Calhoun. But in most cases, men's basketball coaches (who are almost always men) are paid two- or three- times more than the coaches of women's teams, whether they are male or female.

The article then examines factors that contribute to this disparity, which defies the general principal under Title IX that men's and women's teams receive comparable resources, including coaches of equal caliber, and the Equal Pay Act, which prohibits paying women less for equal work. One source of the disparity is third-party sources of income, like endorsements and speaker fees. Men's coaches are also able to capitalize on market forces that make their summer camps a profitable endeavor, while women's team's summer camps are generally recruiting tools that break even. The article also notes that unlike the coaches on the men's side, whose teams receive favorable treatment automatically, coaches of women's teams use their employment contract to secure amenities for their teams. This presumably cuts into their bargaining power to leverage higher salaries.

The article also provides some insight into law's limited ability to address disparities in head coach salaries. Title IX's limitation in this regard is that it is student-focused. The law requires equal treatment for men's and women's teams, which includes the quality of coaching each program receives. Quality of coaching is of course a function of the compensation available. But the overall market for salaries in women's sport generally allows universities to purchase a coach of comparable quality to head their women's teams, just at discount prices.

The Equal Pay Act is also implicated by salary disparities, but limited in its ability to address the problem. For one thing, as the article notes, third-party payments like endorsements are outside the scope of the Equal Pay Act. (I do think, however, that a case could be made for including booster club payments as part of the equal pay equation, by analogizing to Title IX, which requires school districts that accept funds raised by one team's boosters to still provide equal treatment to boys and girls teams.) Another limit is that the Equal Pay Act provides a remedy to women who are paid less than men for equal work -- it doesn't apply to male coaches of women's teams who may be paid less than male coaches of men's teams. And even where the Equal Pay Act does apply, universities can justify disparities in base pay by arguing that the male coach has more job responsibilities -- even if such additional job responsibilities are seemingly manufactured for that purpose, such as requiring the men's team coach to make 20 public appearances and the women's team coach15 (an example from the article). The Equal Pay Act also allows universities to justify paying male coaches more based when their team brings in more revenue, even though this disparity is due to to external market forces rather than the respective effort that each coach puts into the job.

Tennessee Rejects Equal Pay for Women's Athletics Officials

The Washington Post reports that the University of Tennessee recently rejected an internal complaint filed by three employees of women's athletics, arguing that their salaries were discriminatory because they were less than their counterparts in men's athletics. The employees held the positions of Athletics Director for Women’s Sports Medicine, Assistant Athletics Director for Women’s Strength and Conditioning, and the Associate Director for Women’s Strength and Conditioning, until the recent merger of men's and women's athletics at Tennessee.

The University of Tennessee's Office of Equity and Diversity denied their pay discrimination claims after determining that these positions in women's athletics were not comparable to the equivalent positions in men's athletics to justify equal pay. Specifically, the Office stated that due to the financial importance of football to the university, the sports medicine/strength & conditioning employees in men's athletics had a more important job because it mattered more financially that male athletes were healthy:

Football overwhelmingly is the top revenue-generating sport in Athletics and the sport that generates the most fan interest,” the report says. “If the University’s football team is successful, then the entire Athletics program reaps the monetary benefits. If the University’s football team is unsuccessful even partly because football injuries are not being prevented, diagnosed, treated and rehabilitated successfully, then the entire Athletics program suffers. “With no disrespect being intended to Ms. Moshak [Athletic Director for Women's Sports Medicine], Mr. McVeigh’s position [Director of Men's Sports Medicine] is more important to athletics because of his football-related responsibilities."

With this statement, the University of Tennessee declares its true intentions in running an athletic department -- not, as its mission statement conveys, to enrich the education of student athletes, but to exploit the revenue-generating potential of certain sports. Aside from being hypocritical and morally void, this position also suggests that the University is (or was in the recent past prior to the merger) violating Title IX with respect to its athletes, as the law requires equal treatment when it comes to "medical and training facilities and services." And the law contains no exception for football or any sport because of its capacity to generate revenue.

Nor is it clear whether football's revenue justifies paying men's medical and training staff more. If this case made its way to the EEOC, the federal agency that enforces Title VII and the Equal Pay Act, it would consider whether the medical and training staff that McVeigh oversees is comparable in size to Moshak's. Yes, it may take more work to keep the football team healthy, but if you get a larger staff as a result, you can't use "football takes more work" as a justification for unequal pay. Another factor that the EEOC would consider is whether men's and women's athletics received equal opportunity to generate revenue. If the university allocated fewer resources to market and promote women's teams, it can't use the fact that men's teams bring in more revenue to justify pay disparities between men's and women's athletics.

The article does not suggest what's next for this case. Now that the university's decision is final, having been approved by the President on internal appeal, it will be interesting to see if the employees press their claims with the EEOC. And though its less likely, it would be even more interesting to see if someone presses the disparity in medical training as a violation of Title IX.

Texas Southern Coach Wins $700,000 in Retaliation Case

A jury in federal court in Texas awarded over $700,000 to Surina Dixon, a former coach at Texas Southern University who had sued the school for retaliation and discrimination in violation of Title IX and other law.



As we noted when the case was first filed, Dixon claimed that she fired her from the head women's basketball coach position to which she had recently been hired after she insisted on parity in the terms of her employment contract, noting specifically that a recently-hired men's basketball coach with less experience than Dixon received a longer contract and higher salary. She had also complained that TSU glossed over gender inequities in its NCAA Gender Equity Self-Study.

Question the parentheses

I, too, read the news that Orange County, North Carolina schools had been given a clean Title IX bill of health. This article from the Chapel Hill News goes so far as to say that any statistical disparities favored girls--but not the detriment of boys.
Notes the writer: "[girls'] coaches were paid more than coaches of boys' teams when compared to the proportion of students participating in athletics by sex (excluding football)." (emphasis added)
So this is a little confusing. Orange County clearly met one of the three prongs regarding equitable opportunities. But it was not necessarily proportionality. How does this affect our understanding of the above statement? (And as Erin noted, just because it seems that salaries are equitable, does not mean there was not discrimination against the one fired coach--the catalyst for this investigation.) And more importantly, why was football excluded from these calculations? And how many other statistics do not include football?
I haven't been able to find any answers yet, but would love to be enlightened.

In case you didn't believe us...

...it's true that most athletic departments do not make money and many are not even breaking even these days. The NCAA released the results of a study this week that looked at the numbers from 2004-2008. In DI, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) consists of 119 schools. Only 15 reported a profit in 2008.
This was not surprising, but I have to say I was shocked (even though I shouldn't have been) by these numbers:
Median salary of FBS football coach: $1.095 million
Median salary of FBS men's b-ball coach: $822,000
Median salary of FBS women's b-ball coach: $277,000

NCAA addresses pay-for-play questions

The NCAA has added to its website a piece that addresses frequently asked questions and frequently unasked for opinions on the issue of paying student-athletes.
And Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University provides his own response to the NCAA's responses over at The Black Athlete Sports Network. Dr. Watkins makes a connection between the exploitation of athletes and that of slaves in 19th century America. It's a bold comparison and I am not sure I see as clearly as he does the same pedantic tone in the NCAA's response as existed in the rhetoric from slave owners. But in the end he's right on the mark when he points out how others--individuals mostly--are getting rich off of these athletes. And when he notes that it just doesn't seem right that coaches are getting millions when their own athletic departments are operating in the red.
He does rebut the NCAA's contention that there would be Title IX issues invoked if student-athletes started receiving salaries, though I'm not quite sure why Watkins believes it would not be an issue unless he sees athletes being compensated by entities other than their respective institutions--though even if say NBC was the one doling out the cash there still might be equity issues.
In the end, I agree with a lot of what Watkins has to say regarding the NCAA's arguments. But I would rather see reform in some of these areas like coaching contracts and television deals rather than adding student-athletes to the payroll. I know it's like trying to close Pandora's box (and stuff everything back in at the same time) but I'll keep advocating for that approach.

The day after

Sports writer Sally Jenkins has a few things to say to Barack Obama, including reforming the BCS, as we mentioned yesterday--something she believes he can easily accomplish.
No specific mention of Title IX, but number 8 on her list of requests is equal pay in women's sports. She takes the case of Tennessee basketball as a prime example of inequality in sports:
Volunteers men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl is in only his fourth season at Tennessee and never has been past the Sweet 16, yet he makes more than twice what Summitt makes -- an average of $2.3 million a year, plus a retention bonus of $1.5 million. Summitt is in her 35th season at Tennessee and has won eight national championships, graduated 100 percent of her players who have completed their eligibility and is closing in on 1,000 career victories.

She also asks him to show America that basketball is basketball--not men's basketball and women's basketball. She suggests a good way to illustrate this is to invite Candace Parker to the White House for some one-on-one. Better do it sooner in the first 100 days rather than later. It's going to be harder for her to get her dunk on when she's dunking for two!

Mediation Prevents Another Lawsuit Against Fresno State

Fresno State will reportedly pay $605,000 to softball coach Margie Wright, who in 2004 filed a complaint with the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights challenging the disparity in salaries to women coaches and the facilities and opportunities provided to female athletes. Wright had not filed a civil suit against Fresno State like her colleagues Lindy Vivas, Diane Milutinovich, and Stacy Johnson-Klein, but her OCR complaint -- which had raised issues similar to those cases that resulted in multi-million dollar payouts -- triggered a mediation that resulted in the settlement.

Wright testified at Vivas's trial about the sexist and homophobic culture of the Fresno State athletic department, including the "Ugly Women Athlete's Day" affair. She was prevented from mentioning how the baseball coach referred to her team as "Dykes on Spikes" but this testimony would have presumably been admissible in her own case.

Wright is the winningest softball coach in the NCAA, with 1307 career wins.

[Thanks, D!]

More on the Gender Gap in Coaching Salaries

John Wolohan and Laura Bowman's article "Check Swing" (nice!) in the current issue of Athletic Business explores the legal issues surrounding the gender gap in coaching salaries, an issue that has been receiving some press lately.

The authors examine the Equal Pay Act's applicability to coaches' salaries using as an example a lawsuit by Cara Hankinson, who sued the Thomas County, Georgia school district to challenge the salary she was paid as the softball coach, which was less than what the baseball coach was paid. The district court had denied her claim, but the Eleventh Circuit reversed the ruling and required the district court to determine whether the baseball coach's job is substantially similar to Hankinson's job coaching softball, as she had alleged. In Thomas County, the baseball coach's responsibilities included more games, longer games, and more players that the softball coach, but on the other hand, the baseball coach was given more assistant coaches to help him out. This made the similarity of the jobs in subject to dispute, and thus inappropriate to dismiss without a trial.

The authors point out that the court's reasoning is consistent with the guidance that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides (Notice No. 915.002) on this issue. The EEOC says that while coaching positions are substantially similar, there are legitimate justifications for paying coaches different salaries, such as the market value of the coach's particular skills and qualifications, different levels of experience, and a greater range of duties. It remains to be seen whether Thomas County can successfully prove that the baseball coach had a greater range of duties to justify his higher salary. But, as the authors conclude, what is clear is that "the gender of the coach — or of the athletes under the coach's care — is not considered an acceptable factor in trying to justify paying one coach less than another."

NCAA Releases Figures on Salary Disparities in Coaching

USA Today reported last week that 2006 salary statistics recently released by the NCAA confirms that people men who coach men's sports earn more than people who coach women's sports. And among schools with big time football programs, they earn way more. The average salary for a Division I-A women's lacrosse head coach is $80,200, while head coaches of men's lacrosse in that same subdivision earn, on average, more than twice that amount -- $165,400. The gender gap was less pronounced among non-BCS subdivision Division I schools ($69,400 to $55,900 in DI-AA and $64,000 to $53,000 in Division I-AAA) but significant nonetheless.

The sidebar graphic itemized average salaries in other sports as well:

Sport	Men	Women
Gymnastics	$107,400	$91,700
Soccer	$93,900	$90,700
Tennis	$87,200	$71,300
Track	$62,100	$63,600

One explanation for the higher salaries among men's lacrosse coaches is the larger roster size for men's lacrosse teams. In fact, salary differentials are not unlawful if they are based on nondiscriminatory factors such as squad size. Yet it is clear that there is more than squad size driving up the relative salaries for men's lacrosse coaches. Because if the size of the salary was tightly correlated to the size of the team, we would see women's track coaches outearning men's track coaches by a similar order of magnitude (instead of only ~2% more). It's likely that other factors are entering into the equation, and it's hard to ignore the likelihood that sexist assumptions about the relative value of men's sports is coming into play.

We Support Fair Pay

Today, our friends at National Women's Law Center are asking bloggers to help raise awareness about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which is currently pending in the Senate and is possibly up for a vote in the near future.

As the AAUW recently reported, women still only earn 69 to 80 cents on the dollar for comparable work as men. On our blog, we've written about salary disparities affecting female coaches, teachers, professors, and others employed in the education sector.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (formerly the Fair Pay Restoration Act) would help ensure that the courts remain open to plaintiffs with pay discrimination claims. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire that pay discrimination plaintiffs must file suit within 18o days of the employer's initial decision upon the discriminatory salary in question. But because it understandably takes plaintiffs a couple of pay cycles -- often more than 180 days -- to realize their pay is unfair relative to that of men in similar positions, it may be too late to pursue a legal remedy once they do. The Fair Pay Restoration Act would restore what many lower courts had believed to be the law prior to the Ledbetter decision -- that each discriminatory paycheck creates a new 180 day window for the plaintiff to bring her claim. As such, it would eliminate the rigid and unnecessary obstacle to plaintiffs' claims that currently gives incentives to employers to conceal discriminatory pay policies for the statutory period and quickly immunizes them from suit.

Please urge your Senators to support the Fair Pay Restoration Act. All you have to do visit the NWLC's website -- it's quick, it's easy, and it's important.

Pittsburgh Teachers Win $1.2 Million in Pay Discrimination Case

Last week a federal jury awarded $1.2 million to 12 female teachers who had sued their employer, the Elizabeth Forward School District, for discriminating against them on the basis of sex and age. The jury agreed that the plaintiffs were hired at the lowest pay grade even though they had experience from other school districts, resulting in a salary discrepancy between the plaintiffs and other comparably experienced teachers who were younger and/or male.

This was not a Title IX case; instead they chose to pursuing relief under the other federal statutes that address discrimination in the particular context of employment, including the Equal Pay Act, Title VII, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. They also sued under Pennsylvania's general antidiscrimination law. Last year, the District lost its effort to dismiss plaintiffs' case on summary judgment. It had argued that younger and/or male teachers were offered hiring starting salaries because they "filled a particular need," but the court noted that the District couldn't back up this generalized explanation with any specific examples of hiring decisions in which "need" was used to justify a higher salary. That district court decision paved the way for jury trial, which resulted in the $1.2 million verdict.

There's no word yet on whether the district will appeal. But it has not had much success doing so in the past. A jury awarded a $204,000 verdict in a similar case in 2005, and the district's appeal was unsuccessful. The district ended up paying about $666,000 to the plaintiffs once attorneys fees and costs were added in.

Case is: Defurio v. Elizabeth Forward School Dist., No. 05-1227 (W.D. Pa.).
Summary judgment decision is at 2007 WL 2752176 (Sept. 19, 2007).

Court Won't Dismiss Pay Discrimination Case Against Youngstown State

The federal district court for the Northern District of Ohio held last week that Sandra Denman, formerly the general counsel for Youngstown State, could proceed with her claims of wage discrimination and retaliation against her former employer.

In September 2003, Denman analyzed the salaries of executive positions in the university and concluded that they revealed a pattern of discrimination against women. (Youngstown State had recently been advised by an outside consultant to raise the salaries in certain, higher-level pay grades to correct disparities between the salaries of long-serving employees and those of newer hires. However, it apparently incorporated this advice selectively and only to the advantage of male executives.) So Denman sent two memoranda to the university president regarding her conclusions. One warned that YSU might be exposed to liability based on its discriminatory compensation practices. In the other, Denman claimed in her individual capacity that she was being discriminated against because of her gender. Later that month, the President decided that Denman's contract would not be renewed.

Denman filed suit under the Equal Pay Act, Title VII, and Title IX, claiming that she was underpaid on account of her sex and that she was terminated in retaliation for speaking up about it. In denying Youngstown State's motion for summary judgment, the court agreed that Denman had stated a case for pay discrimination, as her salary was lower than the men in her pay grade and the men in the President's cabinet--a discrepancy for which Youngstown State could offer no legitimate business explanation. As for the retaliation claim, the court agreed there was a triable issue of fact whether Denman's memo got her fired. The timing of the President's decision, while not conclusive of a causal relationship between the memo and Denman's termination, is certainly suggestive of that. Moreover, there was also evidence that the President only started to gather evidence of Denman's ostensibly poor performance after Denman sent her memo, which casts doubt on the legitimacy of the President's stated reasons for firing Denman. As a result, the court decided that Denman can bring her case to trial.

Citation: Denman v. Youngstown State Univ., 2008 WL 483066 (N.D. Ohio 2008).