LFN: Delaware Track & Field Case Provides Golden Opportunity for Title IX Compliance

[Lehigh Football Nation]

For those of you not following at home, there is a Title IX case that could have reverberations around FCS college football.

Background: In January, Delaware dropped their 100 year old men's track and field program, demoting it to club status. Title IX compliance was given as a reason.

http://www.bluehens.com/teams/mens-outdoor-track/stories/2011/january/011911a.html


Over several months, the University of Delaware Athletics administration, the Office of the General Counsel and senior University officials conducted an in-depth study to determine the optimal combination of sport offerings that would provide quality opportunities to UD student-athletes while exercising fiscal responsibility and remaining in compliance with Title IX.

Appropriate committees of the UD Board of Trustees have examined and approved a plan to meet these objectives. As a result, the University will reclassify the men’s cross country and men’s track programs from varsity to club status, effective at the conclusion of the 2010–11 academic year.

Their co-captain, Corey Wall, fought back against the cuts, but in an interesting way:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/sports/02gender.html


In cutting the men’s varsity track team, Delaware took the practice a step further. The university did not make the argument that it needed to cut the team to immediately comply with the law — after all, it plans to add a women’s golf team in the fall. Instead, officials say they are ending the track program, which has its 100th anniversary this year, out of concern that they could not remain compliant in the future.

Now, members of the men’s track team have taken an unusual step of their own: they have filed a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX, alleging that Delaware is discriminating against its male athletes. The office decided to look into the complaint, and last week, the university agreed to enter into mediation with the track team to try to resolve the issue.

Kevin Tresolini of the Delaware Journal adds more information:

http://blogs.delawareonline.com/collegesports/2011/04/22/office-for-civil-rights-answers-ud-track-complaint/


The team members filing the complaint cited reverse gender discrimination, suggesting that in upholding Title IX, which has been instrumental in creating athletic opportunities for women, UD was, in fact, taking them away from men “against the spirit of Title IX.”

In their complaint they charged “that the University of Delaware, its administration and Board of Trustees have acted covertly and contrary to the mission and principles which its administration purports and the NCAA demands in their decision to eliminate men’s cross country and track & field.”

“This action discriminates and denies opportunities to student athletes,” the complaint read.

... which has had a predictable effect on fans of Title IX. Most notable is this football-bashing article, titled "University Of Delaware's Title IX Sports Cuts: Questions Still Linger"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/university-delaware-title-ix_n_859737.html


But a coalition of industry insiders, former athletic directors, legal experts and the school’s now dismayed male runners are raising concerns that Title IX was not the primary factor at play. Instead, some argue the athletic department’s move was more a fake punt for the Blue Hen’s rising football program than a strategy to attain gender equity.

“We explored every avenue in search of alternatives to this action,” said Muir. “We found ourselves facing two options: Either we had to continue the periodic expansion of programming for women in order to be responsive to their interest and ability, or adjust the current offerings to provide equitable and substantially proportionate participation opportunities for our men and women. Continued expansion of our Athletics program is not feasible in this financial climate, and given that reality, the University made the only decision it could.”

Yet the university’s ongoing $22 million addition to the student-athlete center and last year’s $2.8 million athletic fundraising effort has some critics raising eyebrows about the fiscal responsibility argument, especially when track and field is one of the least expensive sports. In the 2009-2010 academic year, the men’s outdoor track program had an operating expense of $35,589 and the men’s cross country program cost $13,951.

Now, I throw my own suggestion into the fray - and it's something, if adopted, that might have deep reaching positive effects on FCS football.

http://bit.ly/ihGnQ2


Such actions show that the proportionality test for Title IX is broken. It has had the effect of decimating non-revenue sports like wrestling and has been the cause of dozens of small-school football teams to cease competition. The Delaware men's track team is just one in a long line of men's programs that died as a result.

But by getting back to the spirit of Title IX, perhaps this trend can finally be reversed.

Delaware, who plays Football Championship Subdivision football (or FCS for short), provides a golden opportunity for the OCR to re-evaluate its position on smaller athletics departments.

[Wildcat80]

Is there a way to separate revenue sports from all the others on this title IX issue? If not we are slowly headed to all sports being club sports.....or football losing scholarships.

[henfan]

Barring an exemption for FB, this problem would go away if the courts would allow equivalancies for cheerleading/competitive cheer. IMO, it's absolutely ridiculous NOT to allow them as counters, given the athletic skill, practice and dedication it takes to participate in these squads.

[Redhawk2010]

UD's track and field teams may not be super-expensive. But what are they bringing into the athletic department? That's the thing these people forget. "Oh our sport is so cheap." Yeah, that might be true, but it's not MAKING anything so it's still costing money!

[zymergy]

UD's track and field teams may not be super-expensive. But what are they bringing into the athletic department? That's the thing these people forget. "Oh our sport is so cheap." Yeah, that might be true, but it's not MAKING anything so it's still costing money!

So do you make this a requirement of all the sports. How much does men's soccer, baseball or lax cost vs what they bring in. Matter of fact since our basketball team has been in the basement for so long what are its cost vs revenue?? What about the women's sports since you want to bring it down to money??? I bet not one makes money. Besides football I doubt any sport even come close to breaking even.

[89Hen]

Besides football I doubt any sport even come close to breaking even.

Correct.

[GannonFan]

Correct.

Hey, let's be honest, football doesn't break even at most places. Probably 95% of places in FCS operate in the red and almost everyone outside of a BCS conference does in FBS. The idea that football makes tons of money is a fallacy for most schools.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Hey, let's be honest, football doesn't break even at most places. Probably 95% of places in FCS operate in the red and almost everyone outside of a BCS conference does in FBS. The idea that football makes tons of money is a fallacy for most schools.

And at the FCS level, at best football pays for itself and brings it a tiny bit of $$$ to support the athletic department. Delaware is one of the more profitable schools in that regard, and there's no way that $$$ would even pay for 1/4 of the scholarships for women alone.

It's time to pop the myth that football at the FCS level pays the way for all the other sports. It doesn't.

[GannonFan]

And at the FCS level, at best football pays for itself and brings it a tiny bit of $$$ to support the athletic department. Delaware is one of the more profitable schools in that regard, and there's no way that $$$ would even pay for 1/4 of the scholarships for women alone.

It's time to pop the myth that football at the FCS level pays the way for all the other sports. It doesn't.

Who's saying that FCS football pays the way for all other sports? UD football makes close to $2M profit on football, and I'm sure other than them only places like Montana and Appy St and maybe one or two others are in a similar situation. Now granted, that doesn't include the money that comes in from other, related programs, like the UDAF (kinda like Appy's Josef Club and JMU's Duke Club) and they do make several million on that. Probably all depends on how you constitute paying for other schollies - $2M would cover 80 schollies at $25k each (not that it really costs that much).

[Redhawk2010]

especially when track and field is one of the least expensive sports. In the 2009-2010 academic year, the men’s outdoor track program had an operating expense of $35,589 and the men’s cross country program cost $13,951.

I didn't post it. I'm just commenting on it. If the men's outdoor track program cost $35,589 to operate, that money has to come from somewhere. And unless the track program is bringing in ANY revenue, it is strictly taking money from other programs.

I'm not saying I want to eliminate these men's sports. Definitely not. I have long been a supporter of the idea of Title IX, but severely against the execution of the law. Much of what it has done in the last several years has been to attack the male athletes and only limited benefits for female athletes.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Who's saying that FCS football pays the way for all other sports?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/university-delaware-title-ix_n_859737.html


UD is but one example of a handful of schools that have cut lower-profile men’s teams over the last decade by citing Title IX but inspiring suspicions that funding and football may have played a bigger role. The Colonial Athletic Conference, in which the Blue Hens compete, has seen similar cuts to lower-profile varsity men’s programs at other schools recently. Towson University cut four men’s teams in 2004 and James Madison University, eliminated seven in 2006. Outsiders questioned whether Title IX was being scapegoated for primarily fiscal necessities, especially in the JMU case, which prompted a countersuit against the university.

There’s nothing illegal about citing Title IX as a primary decision-making factor when it may be secondary to funding limitations or attempts at bolstering a football program. The football question is even further muddled by the fact that a successful team like UD’s can contribute money to the rest of the athletic department, and last year the program netted just under one million dollars.

While the article doesn't say that it does support athletics, it does make the accusation that UD (and JMU, upon further review) is cutting other sports in order to "bolster its football program". But I just think that perspective is in order.

Folks (especially outside this community) tend to generalize athletics programs like Ohio State, where the football/TV revenues pay for almost everything, with Delaware, where football contributes to the bottom line but hardly pays for everything, and with the other 95% of FCS programs which don't make any money and are largely in it to provide a good experience for its students and perhaps give a change for some talented kids to get a free education.

I also take exception to the HuffPost writers' assumption that cutting the men's track team has to do with proportionality money. It doesn't. It has more to do with participation, which is a bogus indicator anyway. I'm not a fan of proportionality, but I think the real injustice is that for Title IX you have to report participation numbers. You can have a non-scholarship wrestling program with 30 male participants, pay next to no money for the program, but you can still be dinged for being "out of compliance" because you don't have 30 women who want to row crew.

I don't mind having a method to make sure athletics spending is somewhat in synch between men and women, but for FCS football using participation to judge Title IX compliance is ridiculous. You're paying for 63 scholarships, spread out across multiple participants, and you have walk-ons. The spending is already mandated to be a certain level under compliance rules. The kids walking on to FCS programs and playing scout team ball are almost certainly not guys who will be NFL players, and in many cases are paying to play football, even the partial scholarship kids. What it's really doing is discouraging these males, who are paying their full way in most cases, from even giving football, or wrestling, or rugby, or men's track, a shot. It's unjust.

[UNH_Alum_In_CT]

That "bolstering" argument is really a stretch IMO! They didn't make a decision to cut another sport so that it would improve football. They cut another sport so that football at its current level could survive!! Do these clowns really think keeping a T&F, wrestling, golf, MLax, baseball, etc. squad while cutting football scholarships is the proper course of action? Yeah, let's undermine the program that makes the most money, keeps more alumni involved, brings more people on campus, brings more positive exposure to the university, probably drives the donation engine, etc. xsmhx xrotatehx

I'm all for giving females opportunities to play sports, but Title IX never addressed the reality of a one to one match with scholarship football. Opportunities for females should not have meant the elimination of so many opportunities for males. At UNH every male team, even ice hockey, has a female counterpart except for football. There are four female sports without a corresponding male team (Volleyball, Field Hockey, Lacrosse and Gymnastics) that effectively offset Football. The price has been eliminating Baseball, Golf, Wrestling and Lacrosse. To me that was discriminating against the male players and subsequently created a group of the most irate, disconnected set of alumni I've ever encountered! Why wasn't having a team for the women wherever there was a male team along with a couple of teams without a male counterpart good enough? You want baseball then play softball. Have more scholarships for women like in Basketball (15 compared to 13 for the men).

It's only the reality of not building a policy that adequately addresses football that causes schools to attempt to find creative methods for compliance. But that's today's world, to heck with reality and common sense! xtwocentsx

[CWall]

UD's track and field teams may not be super-expensive. But what are they bringing into the athletic department? That's the thing these people forget. "Oh our sport is so cheap." Yeah, that might be true, but it's not MAKING anything so it's still costing money!

The cross country team has been one of only 3 teams that has made a profit in recent years, and football was not one of them. Regardless, college athletics are not about making money, they are about providing opportunities to student-athletes to compete at the highest level.

Thanks for helping to prove our point though.

[henfan]

The cross country team has been one of only 3 teams that has made a profit in recent years, and football was not one of them. Regardless, college athletics are not about making money, they are about providing opportunities to student-athletes to compete at the highest level.

Thanks for helping to prove our point though.

CWall, according to the UD's most recent EADA report ('09/'10 report), the school had football revenues $980,196 higher than expenses. Football has been on the positive side of the ledger for UD at least since the late 1960's, if not longer. Every EADA report since 1997 has reflected a profit for football in excess of $700K and has even been in excess of $2M on a couple of occasions.

I'd be interested to see the revenues vs. expenses for UD XCountry.

[Sly Fox]

We cut wrestling earlier this spring at Liberty due to Title IX concerns and the response from our wrestling community was that we should cut opportunities in all of our other mens programs in order to keep the sport alive. That's not the answer.

Cheer made sense for counting opportunities at a time when the percentage of females to males int he student body is rising at a rapid rate impacting the Title IX requirements.

[YoUDeeMan]

The cross country team has been one of only 3 teams that has made a profit in recent years, and football was not one of them. Regardless, college athletics are not about making money, they are about providing opportunities to student-athletes to compete at the highest level.

Thanks for helping to prove our point though.

xeyebrowx

You are going to have to cite some sources before anyone believes you.

How does XC get it's income?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

We cut wrestling earlier this spring at Liberty due to Title IX concerns and the response from our wrestling community was that we should cut opportunities in all of our other mens programs in order to keep the sport alive. That's not the answer.

Cheer made sense for counting opportunities at a time when the percentage of females to males int he student body is rising at a rapid rate impacting the Title IX requirements.

Competitive cheer, I think, makes sense in the long run. But there needs to be something for the short run, since classifying competitive cheer as an official NCAA will take time to put together - it's not as easy as the NCAA saying "Now we have competitive cheerleading". They need to sanction the sport, set people up to oversee it, classify it as an "emerging sport" and wait for (5?) years before becoming official... and also brace themselves for a potential legal fight.

More to the point, these cuts in non-revenue programs are not being done because of costs. They cost little to run. To me, the cuts being done more because of participation (which I talk about above) - where a wrestling program with 30 men, consisting largely of kids who pay to wrestle and will be going "pro in something else after graduation", means a compliance violation since 30 women don't want to row crew.

[GannonFan]

Competitive cheer, I think, makes sense in the long run. But there needs to be something for the short run, since classifying competitive cheer as an official NCAA will take time to put together - it's not as easy as the NCAA saying "Now we have competitive cheerleading". They need to sanction the sport, set people up to oversee it, classify it as an "emerging sport" and wait for (5?) years before becoming official... and also brace themselves for a potential legal fight.

More to the point, these cuts in non-revenue programs are not being done because of costs. They cost little to run. To me, the cuts being done more because of participation (which I talk about above) - where a wrestling program with 30 men, consisting largely of kids who pay to wrestle and will be going "pro in something else after graduation", means a compliance violation since 30 women don't want to row crew.

Competitive cheer, though, isn't a panacea. There are plenty of competitive cheer teams (it's already a pretty organized sport, just not under the NCAA auspices. Groups like UCA, WCA, and NCA have run it for decades) but a lot of these teams have guys as part of them (coed is a separate division, and often more prestigious, than female only).

I agree, it's not about up front money, the reason schools drop sports like UD here is to avoid the potential for a lawsuit (and the money) in the future. I kinda take the other view though - sure it sucks for the guys in these fringe sports that aren't able to compete at the collegiate level in these sports, but it's really the fault of the Universities and others in the past that before Title IX and the serious enforcement of it didn't really try hard enough to give women equal opportunities to compete. We bemoan the impact of Title IX on wrestling and mens gymnastics and cross country and so on, but the same people should've been more diligent about making sure women weren't discriminated as much as they were for all of the period except for maybe the last 10-15 years. It's easy to say let's do away with proportionality as a criteria, but we have the example of the decades before where there wasn't strict enforcement of a policy to ensure proportionality and women were invariably screwed under that system. Title IX has been one of the most successful initiatives in memory - look at the opportunities and avenues that are open to women now that 10-15 years didn't exist. I don't have a daughter but I would be estatic at how her options have changed so much for the better in such a short period of time. Even with all the harm to fringe men's sports now, it's still a better situation than what we had before.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

I agree, it's not about up front money, the reason schools drop sports like UD here is to avoid the potential for a lawsuit (and the money) in the future. I kinda take the other view though - sure it sucks for the guys in these fringe sports that aren't able to compete at the collegiate level in these sports, but it's really the fault of the Universities and others in the past that before Title IX and the serious enforcement of it didn't really try hard enough to give women equal opportunities to compete. We bemoan the impact of Title IX on wrestling and mens gymnastics and cross country and so on, but the same people should've been more diligent about making sure women weren't discriminated as much as they were for all of the period except for maybe the last 10-15 years. It's easy to say let's do away with proportionality as a criteria, but we have the example of the decades before where there wasn't strict enforcement of a policy to ensure proportionality and women were invariably screwed under that system. Title IX has been one of the most successful initiatives in memory - look at the opportunities and avenues that are open to women now that 10-15 years didn't exist. I don't have a daughter but I would be estatic at how her options have changed so much for the better in such a short period of time. Even with all the harm to fringe men's sports now, it's still a better situation than what we had before.

To some degree I agree with you in that schools bear responsibility for not giving the "underrepresented sex" (in this case, women) more opportunities. But adhering to the principle ("No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance") and adhering to the current implementation of it are two different things.

I agree that there should be something to ensure schools can't just funnel money and resources into football and men's basketball and let women's sports simply wither. That some of that money goes towards giving scholarships to talented women is a great thing. But the current implementation of it goes well beyond that - enforcement now requires schools to count participants, not just money. Your wrestling team with 15 wrestlers and 15 sparring partners, with not a single person getting scholarship money? Every one of those kids count - all 30 of them, and they need to be offset by women participants. The co-ed fencing team, with 12 men and 8 women, not getting any scholarship money? All of them count - as men. They also need to be offset by women participants.

Once you have a track for your women's track teams, it costs next to nothing to have a men's track team. But schools cut men's track teams anyway. It's to meet this impossible task of proportional participation. Now, if you're Auburn, perhaps you throw money at the problem by giving women's track and field scholarship money. But these types of solutions are not available for any school competing at the FCS level.

[GannonFan]

To some degree I agree with you in that schools bear responsibility for not giving the "underrepresented sex" (in this case, women) more opportunities. But adhering to the principle ("No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance") and adhering to the current implementation of it are two different things.

I agree that there should be something to ensure schools can't just funnel money and resources into football and men's basketball and let women's sports simply wither. That some of that money goes towards giving scholarships to talented women is a great thing. But the current implementation of it goes well beyond that - enforcement now requires schools to count participants, not just money. Your wrestling team with 15 wrestlers and 15 sparring partners, with not a single person getting scholarship money? Every one of those kids count - all 30 of them, and they need to be offset by women participants. The co-ed fencing team, with 12 men and 8 women, not getting any scholarship money? All of them count - as men. They also need to be offset by women participants.

Once you have a track for your women's track teams, it costs next to nothing to have a men's track team. But schools cut men's track teams anyway. It's to meet this impossible task of proportional participation. Now, if you're Auburn, perhaps you throw money at the problem by giving women's track and field scholarship money. But these types of solutions are not available for any school competing at the FCS level.

Thing is, it's not impossible, it's a choice. UD lists as participants something like close to 110 kids for football. That's a choice. Not every school needs to be playing football. When LaSalle stopped playing football a couple of years back, I said it then too - football isn't mandatory for Universities and colleges. If you can't afford it or can't afford the ability to give equal opportunity to women athletes (especially if you're a college that has more females than males) then you should reconsider if football is right for you. Playing football or going to football games is not a central facet for everyone's college experience - the majority of college grads in the US, when you think of it, probably don't do either at their schools during their time in college. And outside of a small handful of schools at any level, football isn't a revenue generator. I love football and I love the college game, but that doesn't mean that everybody everywhere needs to be playing it - Title Ix isn't so onerous when you consider that. In the end, it's a choice.

[WestCoastAggie]

We all have to sit back and ask ourselves, our prospective Athletic Departments and boosters clubs this question:

What is the main objective for our Athletic Departments? Is it to generate a profit for our Universities or to create an avenue for students to earn an opportunity to gain an education for free at an institution that they may not want to or be able to attend otherwise?

Once we answer these questions, we can then develop ways to better navigate the Title IX waters.

[Sly Fox]

The participation numbers are the issue. Most FCS schools have had to limit walk-on opportunities in both football & mens hoops in recent years to help keep ratio of participation numbers closer to their student body counts. The participation issue is more of a challenge than scholarships at any school that supports football. And with student bodies increasingly having a larger percentage of women to men the problem is growing more concerning for athletic departments every day.

You have to wonder how much longer schools can afford to sponsor mens tennis, soccer, golf, wrestling or LAX. They have grown to be luxuries that most athletic departments facing Title IX concerns can no longer afford.

[danefan]

We all have to sit back and ask ourselves, our prospective Athletic Departments and boosters clubs this question:

What is the main objective for our Athletic Departments? Is it to generate a profit for our Universities or to create an avenue for students to earn an opportunity to gain an education for free at an institution that they may not want to or be able to attend otherwise?

Once we answer these questions, we can then develop ways to better navigate the Title IX waters.

Ideal case is a break-even, IMO. Some sports in the red and some in the black, but overall at a break even. That way the only people that are benefitting from certain sports making money is other sports. Not administrators or coaches making mid 6-figure salaries.

But that rarely happens. Almost all athletic departments operate at a true loss. Very few survive without funding from the University.

[Redhawk2010]

But that rarely happens. Almost all athletic departments operate at a true loss. Very few survive without funding from the University.

You know what.. I don't see that as a major problem. Now there are those who are anti-athletics who do. But then they turn around and have no problem with the drama departments, etc that are completely in the red.

Athletics are just like a lot of other departments on a college campus. Why should they be treated differently? (and they are..)

[Lehigh Football Nation]

The participation numbers are the issue. Most FCS schools have had to limit walk-on opportunities in both football & mens hoops in recent years to help keep ratio of participation numbers closer to their student body counts. The participation issue is more of a challenge than scholarships at any school that supports football. And with student bodies increasingly having a larger percentage of women to men the problem is growing more concerning for athletic departments every day.

You have to wonder how much longer schools can afford to sponsor mens tennis, soccer, golf, wrestling or LAX. They have grown to be luxuries that most athletic departments facing Title IX concerns can no longer afford.

I very much agree with this. And if the OCR were to decide that football participation at the FCS level didn't count for participation numbers, it would allow Delaware to reinstate men's track tomorrow - as well as rescue many, many other non-revenue men's sports at small colleges and universities.

[Milktruck74]

Some Big (Tennessee, UConn, Stanford,etc) Womens teams use Male Practice players, and thru a loop hole they count as "Female Athletes". Maybe that is the answer.....

Recruiting Coach - "Son, I know you are a 4 star Tight End....Welcome to our Womens Volleyball Team!"

Hell, it worked for Bear Bryant for many years.

[GannonFan]

Some Big (Tennessee, UConn, Stanford,etc) Womens teams use Male Practice players, and thru a loop hole they count as "Female Athletes". Maybe that is the answer.....

Recruiting Coach - "Son, I know you are a 4 star Tight End....Welcome to our Womens Volleyball Team!"

Hell, it worked for Bear Bryant for many years.

I'm not sure there really is such a loophole - for schools that use male practice players there is always a proviso in the EADA report that details that male practice players are used and in what sports. From a lawsuit perspective, it would be easy to parse the numbers and get to the real ones.