LFN: The Complicated Puzzle of Title IX and the Patriot League

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com/2009/07/complicated-puzzle-of-title-ix-and.html


There's a lot going on in the news these days: the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, the potential bankruptcy of CIT, the accidental hazardous chemical spill at Lehigh (with no casualties, thankfully), and - most importantly to a lot of people - Hermione Granger (I mean, actress Emma Watson's) choice to attend Brown University. (One can only hope she follows in fellow Ivy Leaguer Brooke Shields' (Princeton) footsteps.)

With all this going on, it would have been real easy to miss two very interesting NCAA news releases released in the dead of summer regarding potentially momentous changes into the way financial aid is accounted, especially in regards to the Patriot League and athletic aid.

I go into (at *great length*, I might add) about Title IX compliance and Ms. Femovich's recent article concerining Fordham's move towards FB schollies. In it I talk about how I understand Title IX to be computed in the Patriot League.

[Go...gate]

Excellent article.

[Fordham]

Shouldn't this thread be dumped into the FCS Feeds section? xrotatehx

Great, great article LFN - perhaps your best imo in terms of capturing the absurd level of moving parts associated with Title IX spending at PL institutions. I'm still sitting here stunned, though, that need-based aid was such a tool to get around Title IX equivalency for so many schools. In this entire conversation my assumption was that since this is clearly aid for football players it is being counted as such. Again, just pretty stunned right now and not nearly as hopeful on the PL moving towards scholarship as I was.

Sidebar - how are merit scholarships counted? Is that outside of the Title IX calculations? Is it outside of athletic dept. spending?

[DFW HOYA]

Sidebar - how are merit scholarships counted? Is that outside of the Title IX calculations? Is it outside of athletic dept. spending?

Merit (athletic) scholarships are counted fully for Title IX and athletic spending. What you see, however, is schools that limit or reduce the number of men's sports and/or increase women's sports to balance the impact.

For example, the University of Texas, which generates more revenue than any Division I school, only sponsors eight men's sports and 18 overall. West Virginia carries only seven men's and seven women's teams for 14 total, the NCAA minimum. By contrast, the PL ranges from 20-29 sports teams per school.

[DetroitFlyer]

At Dayton, I think that the non-athletic scholarship football program is offset by a large, non-athletic scholarship women's rowing program. In spite of being non-athletic scholarship, our women's rowing team does well. If I remember correctly, our light eight boat is often nationally ranked.

It would certainly be interesting if the aid that schools like Dayton award to students that happen to play football would become "counter" aid.... I can see it now, Dayton at Notre Dame for the Mid-West Catholic Football Championship....

[RichH2]

Now I understand why I dont understand how this system works. I hope LU has not taken these shortcuts. LC and GU major problems, everyone else heavy imbalance of M and W.

Now that LFN has given us a better view of the problems. How do they get solved?

[DFW HOYA]

Now I understand why I dont understand how this system works. I hope LU has not taken these shortcuts. LC and GU major problems, everyone else heavy imbalance of M and W.

Georgetown' situation differs from Lafayette's.

Georgetown is 46% male and its athletic aid is 47% of the total, or a rough compliance with the +/- 5% threshold commonly cited in Title IX talk. The problem is quantity--$2.8 million for 14 men's sports doesn't leave a lot of aid for sports outside basketball. By contrast, Fordham budgets nearly $5 million in aid for men's sports.

Lafayette is 52% male but its athletic aid is 62% of the total. To add money on the male side LC will literally need 110% more on the female side of the ledger.

[RichH2]

DFW,

Wasn't putting LC and GU together as to type of issues only that you 2 seem to have the most major. I am looking forward to your 3rd installment. Like my daughters with the Harry Potter moviesxnodx

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Just wanted to mention too something in my piece that the +/- 5% rule has been challenged as well, and may be becoming even more restrictive in the future as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/sports/19ncaa.html?scp=2&sq=Title%20IX&st=cse


Judges have typically ruled that universities are in compliance with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX if the proportion of athletes who are women is within 5 percent of the representation of women in the total enrollment.

But a settlement announced Wednesday between the University of California-Davis and three female athletes holds the university’s athletic officials to a stricter 1.5 percent standard and could influence similar cases around the country, according to lawyers who are knowledgeable about gender-equity cases.

This implies that LC (taking DFW's example) might actually have to spend *more* than 110% in order to meet the more strict 1.5% standard - although if it does become precedent there are a boatload of schools that will have to spend more to come into compliance. Basically, any school with a female-heavy ratio, which includes many religious institutions but also includes HBCU's.

I may follow up on this with another post with some possible solutions. I would hope one solution would be to have people step away from these ridiculous thresholds for Title IX compliance. I can't believe that the goal of the Title IX laws are to eliminate sports at religious universities and HBCU's. Title IX doesn't need repealing, but it does need reform.

[Fordham]

xconfusedxWould love to hear from the HC guys on this. I heard that their financial aid to football players is blind. That is apparently how they rationalize not counting it since it's supposedly no different than what is offered a regular student.

Certainly is confusing stuff ... particularly since most schools seem to have issues but the issues they have aren't necessarily the same issues that others are having.

[jimbo65]

This is mostly beyond my ken. That said, is there a basis for suspecting that certain PL members' fight to retain the "virtue"of non schollie fball is truly motivated by a desire not to equally fund women's sports.

Also, according to Coach Masella at FU, the move to scholarships will not cost anything (my words not his but that was the crux). Apparently, FU was equalling the value of the fball aid with aid to women and say HC, was not. Naughty, naughty.

When in sports, or pretty much any other arena, "follow the $".

[RichH2]

LFN,

read a bit on 1.5% application by Court, may become an issue but I feel it unlikely to be a binding precedent in all cases as determination by Ct based on facts in that case warranting a more restrictive interpretation than in other cases. That being said schools have to be aware that the bar in certain situations can be raised and that +/-5% is not etched in steel

[Lehigh Football Nation]

LFN,

read a bit on 1.5% application by Court, may become an issue but I feel it unlikely to be a binding precedent in all cases as determination by Ct based on facts in that case warranting a more restrictive interpretation than in other cases. That being said schools have to be aware that the bar in certain situations can be raised and that +/-5% is not etched in steel

Thanks for the heads-up. It's making me think that the "lawyers who are knowledgeable about gender-equity cases" quoted in the NYT were the people who brought the case against UC-Davis, hoping for more money. xrolleyesx

[danefan]

Dane96 wrote a law review article on Title IX when he was in law school, I'd like to hear his thoughts on this

And if I read the article correctly, the UC Davis case was a settlement, which would lead to ZERO precedential value for other cases

[RichH2]

True, the settlement was approved by Ct and in either event ltd to facts in that case BUT while it will not have "precedent" status for Courts it does break with prior +/- 5% . In other words, no Ct is bound to impose a 1.5% measure but the language will act to embolden Plaintiff's to ask for it and for Cts, arbitrators, mediators et al to consider it. It will certainly come up as the NCAA reviews need aid .

[ngineer]

Merit (athletic) scholarships are counted fully for Title IX and athletic spending. What you see, however, is schools that limit or reduce the number of men's sports and/or increase women's sports to balance the impact.

For example, the University of Texas, which generates more revenue than any Division I school, only sponsors eight men's sports and 18 overall. West Virginia carries only seven men's and seven women's teams for 14 total, the NCAA minimum. By contrast, the PL ranges from 20-29 sports teams per school.


Good observation. Which also tells you that revenue is what runs the athletic departments at the big schools. Athletics are NOT part of the education process at the factories as opposed to those that have as a goal athletes that mirror the student body.

[ngineer]

Excellent article LFN--one of, if not, the best you have done. Helps see the problem in managing the scholarship/grant issue.xthumbsupx

[Go...gate]

Excellent article LFN--one of, if not, the best you have done. Helps see the problem in managing the scholarship/grant issue.xthumbsupx

Agreed. I can see now why Femovich was amenable to an "open policy" on this. League-wide, Title IX compliance is really a mishmash.