YEAR IN REVIEW
ITHACA COLLEGE WORKS TO COMPLY WITH TITLE IX AS GENDER EQUITY ISSUES PERSIST IN ATHLETICS BY CONNOR GLUNT
male and 42% female, the proportion of the student body is nearly the exact opposite, being 59% female itle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and 41% male. Additionally, undergraduate proporis legislation that protects people from being discrim- tionality has largely stayed the same since Fall 2003, inated against based on their sex in activities that as the percentage of female undergraduate students receive federal assistance. It includes protections in col- has stayed between the range of 54.8% and 58.2% of lege athletics and education programs. In order for an the college’s student body. Furthermore, from 2003 institution to be compliant with Title IX, it only needs to the most recent EADA report the college filled out, the number of unduplicated men’s team participants to satisfy one of the three parts of the legislation. Title IX is broken up into three prongs of compli- has been greater than the number of unduplicated ance: proportionality, expansion and accommodating women’s team participants each year. The most recent data available for average roster interests. Proportionality refers to whether a school’s athletics programs have a proportional number of sizes of Division III teams offered by the NCAA showed male and female students compared to the overall that the college had larger than average rosters in all student body. Expansion is if a school can show that women’s sports except for golf and volleyball. Erienne it has or is working to expand its athletics programs Roberts, associate director of athletics, said the goal of the underrepresented sex. Lastly, accommodating is for the college to have similar numbers roster-wise interests is whether a school can show they are com- compared to the data the NCAA has provided them. “What we would like is to just be consistent with pliant with Title IX by meeting the interests of the some of the data the NCAA has provided through our underrepresented sex. Susan Bassett, associate vice president and director sports sponsorship reporting and use that to compare of intercollegiate athletics and recreational sports, said ourselves to the Liberty League, as well as nationally the college’s current priority is providing an equitable ranked institutions,” Roberts said. One approach Bassett and Roberts said they are and fair experience for all athletes, coaches and staff. Bassett said focus for the future is working toward considering to help to resolve the issue of proportionality is to add varsity sports like women’s rugby and meeting the proportionality prong of Title IX. “We’re probably at a point now, because under- cheerleading, which are currently club sports. “The priority when you consider adding a sport graduate enrollment is changing, where it’s more female than male,” Bassett said. “We’re implement- is that there be a viable competitive opportunity for ing roster management … to come into compliance them,” Bassett said. “For example, we can’t just add a sport that no one else is playing or that we wouldn’t be with proportionality.” Each year, the college fills out an Equity in Athletics able to realistically travel to.” Senior Alyssa Denger, president of the college’s Data Analysis (EADA) report, which includes information regarding athletic participation, staffing, revenues women’s club rugby team, has been a part of the team and expenses. In the 2019–20 EADA report, the college since her freshman year. Denger said that if the club reported that it had 450 athletes on men’s teams and were to be promoted to varsity, it would be the product of years of hard work. 319 athletes on women’s teams. “I think it would be a great opportunity for players According to the Office of Analytics and Institutional Research, while the proportion of athletes is 58% who want to be more serious with this sport,” Denger said. “I think our club has made huge leaps and bounds with our personal development over the past four years.” Though she does not have a plan to campaign for the team to become varsity, Denger said she thinks its promotion would be beneficial to fix the issue with proportionality. “Rugby is unique because it allows people who identify as female to play a sport that is most commonly related to football, which is mostly male-dominated,” Denger said. The 2020 memo that Bassett wrote also stated that the college met all 11 program components that were established by the Office of Civil Rights equitably. Included in the list of components Abbey London/The Ithacan are equitable coaching and recruitment
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of student-athletes. However, in the 2019–20 EADA report, there are sizable differences in the average annual salaries for coaching positions between men’s and women’s teams. The college listed that of the 10 head coaches of men’s teams, the average annual institutional salary was $73,137. For the 14 head coaches of women’s teams, it was $56,901. In terms of recruitment, men’s teams spent $48,262 on recruiting expenses, but women’s teams spent $32,892. Bassett and Roberts said the college satisfies the second prong of Title IX by having a history of expanding athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex by adding women’s golf in 2009 and women’s sculling in 2012. However, Lance Houston, a Title IX and labor law expert, said he believes the college still has impartiality between men’s and women’s sports. “[The EADA report] shows a history [of expanding women’s athletic opportunities], but I’m not sure that there’s an actual achievement,” Houston said. “It seems to me that while I think the school is working towards gender equity, there appears to still be a gender equity issue.” Houston said that though the college has improved in its Title IX compliance, he thinks that there is more work to be done. One of my concerns would be the athletic opportunities for women,” Houston said. “The structure of the EADA report, the head coaches’ salaries and the assistant coaches’ salaries, that tells a story and the college has a burden to meet.” Additionally, the college is facing serious financial issues. During the 2020–21 academic year, the college began the elimination of 116 full-time equivalent faculty positions as part of the Academic Program Prioritization. She said she expected all of the remaining open coaching positions to be filled very soon. Bassett said the college has accomplished fuller rosters in all women’s sports since she assumed her position in July 2013, but participation in golf, women’s tennis and women’s combined track and field have decreased since then, according to previous EADA reports. Bassett also said the college has made improvements but will look to improve on its Title IX compliance in the future. “What we have to do is both add participation opportunities for women and implement some roster management,” Bassett said. “We can’t just keep adding women’s sports because, at some point, the quality is going to be hard to maintain, and there’s just a limit. … I would argue that some of the larger sports sponsorships have a diminished level of quality, and we want to maintain a high standard within all of our programs.”
