WIU to Use Model Surveys to Demonstrate Title IX Compliance

Here's some welcome news out of the state of Illinois:

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and Western Illinois University have signed a resolution agreement following a complaint filed with the OCR alleging Title IX violations by the University's Intercollegiate Athletics Program.

The complaint alleged that the University does not effectively accommodate the athletic interests and abilities of members of both sexes and did not provide equitable publicity for men's and women's athletics. According to
WIU Attorney Heidi Benson, the agreement with OCR states that the University strongly denies the allegations of the complaint and agrees to resolve the complaint by providing information that illustrates Title IX compliance.

Benson noted that the University has already taken steps that address components of the agreement relating to the OCR's "three part test." The University recently completed a survey in which all of Western's 10,000-plus undergraduate students were asked their interest in participating and ability to participate in a variety of sports that are considered by Title IX as "core" or "emerging." Cathy Couza, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access and Title IX coordinator at Western, noted the survey is being used to assess the level of interest and ability in sports that may not be offered at WIU. The survey was based on the model survey that was recommended by the OCR, Couza added.

The University will tabulate the data from this survey, and the University will submit the results of the survey to the OCR by April 1, 2009, then it will use the data to formulate a plan, which will be submitted to the OCR for approval, to illustrate how the University is accommodating the interests and abilities of female and male students in the University's Intercollegiate Athletics Program.

This is the sort of announcement that the College Sports Council (CSC) has been expecting for many years. Needless to say CSC welcomes it. A couple of points:

CSC applauds WIU for having the courage to include students as the primary deciding voice in what sports the school provides.

That idea -- that student interest should be the guide -- is really what the whole spirit of the Title IX in athletic is all about. It's really a stark contrast with how other schools prove compliance. The fact remains that too many school are in the headlock grip of educrats -- whether it be the Department of Education, a school's athletic department, the NCAA or trial lawyers who favor proportionality and no other solution. That means students never get a voice.

As the situation clearly illustrates, the OCR is going to work with WIU and let the school comply using the survey. This is a clear example to schools all over the country that they can do the same, and there's no reason why any school should not follow suit.

We also can't help but notice that WIU surveyed all 10,000 students. That's a great thing, as both men and women deserve a voice in athletic participation. Bravo to WIU for courage on T9 reform. If sports were scored on guts alone, they'd be national champions.

Title IX is Always a Factor When Cutting Men's Programs

As we've seen from some of the posts we've linked to recently, the use of pretzel-bending logic to justify the misapplication of Title IX in college athletics can be mind-numbing to say the least. Here's yet another example, this time from West Virginia University student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, as it told the story of how the school wrung another $500,000 out of the athletic program by cutting nothing but men's sports:

Among the list of tasks athletic director Ed Pastilong and staff compiled were placing more of an emphasis on football, building better facilities and making more money – $500,000 more.

To implement these ideas, the department decided to make athletics cuts.

“We could’ve just chopped every team’s budget a little bit and just water-down the entire program, but we looked at all the options and this was the one we came up with,” said associate athletic director Russ Sharp.

As a result, the rifle, men’s tennis, men’s cross country and men’s indoor and outdoor track and field teams were cut from the budget in 2003.

But because 54 of 56 of those athletes were male, the athletic department was criticized for making cuts to meet Title IX requirements.

“We got a lot of flak,” Sharp said. “A lot of people, because they were all men’s sports, pointed to (Title IX). People went there even though it wasn’t the reason.

“The reality of it is, we didn’t do that for Title IX reasons.”

But yet, just a few paragraphs later ...

“We recognized at the time that any decision we made … we couldn’t drop three women’s sports,” Sharp said. “We couldn’t make our Title IX position worse.”

In other words, Title IX protected women's sports from cuts, while making men's sports completely vulnerable.

And by the way, the rifle team that was cut was the most successful program in NCAA history, nabbing 13 national titles. Ultimately, it took an action by the state legislature to reinstate and fully fund the program. But as our readers know, even when boosters have offered to fully fund men's sports after they've been cut, schools have turned down the money because keeping the team alive would mean running afoul of Title IX's proportionality prong.

Slandering Title IX Reform and Supporters of Wrestling

Over at Because I Played Sports, Megan Lauren O'Donnell is tying herself into logical knots trying to deny that the manner in which Title IX is enforced has resulted in the elimination of men's wrestling programs all over the country. In addition to compounding that fallacy, she makes it worse by claiming that opponents of Title IX reform are fighting against the expansion of women's wrestling at the collegiate level, when, as we've pointed out in the past, the exact opposite is the case.

It's more than enough to make your head spin, especially when you consider that one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the expansion of women's wrestling is the NCAA itself, and it's refusal to give it the "emerging sport" tag.

Another point: Megan's argument also completely ignores the fact that one of the reasons schools don't add women's wrestling is that they'd rather add large roster sports like crew that help them hit their quota numbers instead of sponsoring sports that women are actually demonstrating interest in.

I will say one thing: unlike many other bloggers who are fighting reform of Title IX, at least Megan is honest enough to allow others to leave comments on her blog -- something few others of her ilk are willing to do. Please stop by and join the conversation.

CORRECTION: As has been pointed out in the comments, Because I Played Sports is edited by Megan Heuter, not Megan O'Donnell. We regret the error. However, as Megan herself admits, we still don't know the identity of the person who wrote the post. Megan says she hasn't figured out how to add another author inside Word Press, but as somebody who's been playing with Word Press for a couple of days now as well as blogging for more than 7 years, I don't find that explanation terribly convincing.

Be that as it may, we continue to be astonished at the pretzel-like logic used in the original post on this topic. But the greatest joke of all is this: that the idea that the post pushes -- that schools should adopt women's wrestling in order to keep men's teams alive -- is an idea that was generated by men's wrestling coaches in the first place.

In other words, there is absolutely no opposition to women's wrestling on the part of the College Sports Council and the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Attacking the wrestling community as a whole on this issue is simply non-sensical. In the end, the only reason that anyone would continue this line of reasoning would be to continue to slander many of the folks who are working so hard to make women's wrestling a reality at colleges and universites around the country.

CSC Chairman Has Letter Published in Washington Post

College Sports Council Chairman Eric Pearson had a letter to the editor published it Saturday's edition of the Washington Post. It was submitted in response to an article published earlier this month concerning how fewer and fewer boys are taking up swimming:

We were cheered to see the Oct. 8 Sports article "Closing Gender Gap in the Pool" acknowledge the fact that Title IX has had a devastating effect on male participation at all levels of swimming competition.

Unfortunately, the problem isn't limited to swimming. In fact, the manner in which Title IX is enforced has threatened the existence of a number of men's Olympic sports at the collegiate level, including gymnastics, wrestling, fencing, rowing and water polo.

With China challenging American dominance in Olympic sports, how can we remain competitive if we continue to allow federal gender quotas to destroy the uniquely American collegiate sports system that has for generations developed so many of our Olympic champions?

ERIC PEARSON
Chairman
College Sports Council
Washington

To see our original response to the article in question, click here.

The Truth About the Women's Sports Foundation and Their Study on Athletic Participation Rates

We heard back by phone from Associated Press sports editor Terry Taylor about the problems we pointed out in reporter Melissa Murphy's story about a Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) study -- "Who's Playing College Sports? Money, Race and Gender -- that concluded male athletes hadn't been harmed by Title IX. Taylor was diligent in looking into the matter and we at the College Sports Council certainly appreciate her effort.

Taylor agreed that the story fell short of AP standards and should have included a more balanced perspective on the study and on Title IX policy. She also indicated that the story should have disclosed that the WSF, which released the findings, is an interest group with a specific policy bias on the issue. She assured us that the AP would do a better job the next time that a story on Title IX arose.

But that said, it seems apparent to us that the Women's Sports Foundation misled reporters about their "study" in several key respects. We did some further investigating of our own and would like to share what we found with readers:

• When the study was first released, on September 23, the WSF provided no link to the source data that was used in the research -- instead they only released their executive summary. We soon realized why -- that source data is being actively withheld from public view. The 1995 data that serves as the starting point for the research is being held by professor John Cheslock at the University of Arizona. The other data, from the NCAA, is being held at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis -- and they refused all requests to make it available. As anyone who covers social science knows, unless researchers show their source data, any study is unverifiable and meaningless -- especially when the overall findings are presented by a group with a vested interest in the outcome.

• What's worse still is that WSF represented the 1995 baseline data as though it were independent, government material -- describing it as "analyses of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data." But in reality, that data was collected by the WSF itself. That's right -- they sent out forms to schools and collected the results directly. There's no way to verify their accuracy.

• Now comes the real kicker. WSF presented professor John Cheslock as an independent researcher who compiled the study. Indeed, that's how he was described in various news accounts including the AP's story and also in the Wall Street Journal. We asked the AP to confirm whether Cheslock was compensated -- and editor Terry Taylor told us that WSF claimed not to have paid Cheslock. But WSF's claim is flat-out false. In Cheslock's curriculum vitae, he indicates that WSF gave him a grant of more than $65,000 to conduct the study. Here is a link to the CV and the relevant excerpts:

Grants
Principal Investigator, Intercollegiate Athletics Participation Study, Women’s Sports Foundation; $65,552;

August 2006 – July 2008.

CURRENT AND PENDING SUPPORT
The principal investigator is currently pursuing research on the effect of Title IX on intercollegiate athletics, which is funded through July 31, 2008, by a research grant from the Women’s Sport Foundation. While active, this project requires 20% of his time. He has no other current or pending support.

So, to sum up. An activist interest group released a study they claimed was independent research -- but in fact they compiled the baseline data themselves.

They claim the data is accurate -- but there's no way to review it nor verify how it was compiled.

They said an independent academic researcher did the analysis -- but in fact he was paid tens of thousands of dollars by an activist group with a stake in the outcome. And many reporters were brazenly misled by these distortions.

Here's the bottom line: the WSF study is unreliable and their public release is intellectual dishonesty of the worst sort, especially since the consequences of their advocacy means the continued elimination of so many athletic opportunities because of their whitewashing of Title IX's proportionality requirement.

We would urge reporters and news outlets that were deceived by WSF to follow up with them and demand hard answers and real accountability.

Wichita State Wants to Bring Back Football

But Title IX may be in the way.

Not exactly a "shocker" (pun intended) is it?

Click here for Part I and here for Part II. For more on the effort to return football to Wichita State, visit Bring Back Shockers Football.

Should Men's Gymnastics Earn a Title IX Waiver?

Stick It Media says yes:

Because men’s bodies mature later than women’s, men’s Division I programs are more important for Olympic development. NCAA programs for women are actually post-Olympics or on the separate "college track," rather than the elite track that goes international when the best female gymnasts are still in their teens. For this reason alone, it just might be important to consider Title IX waivers to be granted to schools that choose to have men’s gymnastics programs. Funding might not be a problem if donors knew that schools could be free to establish or re-establish men’s programs without Title IX constraints. Corporate sponsorships should also be part of the equation. Funding shouldn’t be an issue for a prime-time Olympic sport. We need more opportunities for men, and the more men we have competing at the Division I level, the better it is for the sport and for the athletes. We’re not talking about football and basketball here. Gymnasts have higher graduation rates than football and basketball players. It’s a win-win situation.

Again, in light of the competitive threat exhibited by China at the Olympics, the country ought to be willing to consider creative alternatives to the iron clad regime of proportionality.

WaPo Makes Rare MSM Admission on Harm of Title IX

Though you would have to fight all the way to the 19th paragraph of a Washington Post story by Amy Shipley on how boys and young men are outnumbered by females in American swimming, you would eventually find this rare admission about how Title IX has harmed the sport and depressed the number of male participants:

There is also the matter of opportunity: Universities across the country have eliminated more than six dozen men's swimming programs in the last two decades, according to Phil Whitten, the director of the College Swimming Coaches Association of America. Most schools made the cuts to adhere to Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal participation opportunities for male and female students. The perception that there are few opportunities for college scholarships could deter talented male athletes, some swimming experts say.

I guess I should stand up and cheer, unfortunately, one of the reasons that supposedly has depressed male participation that made its way into the story above Title IX was the skimpy suits swimmers are forced to wear.

After reading Shipley's article, I did a little math. She quotes the College Swimming Coaches Association as saying that more than 6 dozen programs have been canceled outright thanks to Title IX. I took a look at the Web site for Auburn University's Men's Swim Team. They have 22 swimmers on their roster.

Multiply 22 by 72 (a low-end estimate), and that means that there are almost 1,600 fewer roster spots available at the college level in swimming than there were two decades ago. Without those competitive examples available, why in the world would young men, especially competitive young men, stick with swimming knowing that they would probably be unable to continue to compete as collegians?

Title IX Killing Men's Gymnastics in California

From Stick It Media:

Savings Sports blog has an interesting post about Title IX . One quote in particular caught StickItMedia’s eyes — "the NCAA cannot be considered an objective source. The NCAA leadership is on record as being closely aligned with groups fighting all forms of Title IX reform and has attempted to quash any debate about the effect of Title IX on decreasing collegiate participation opportunities in the Olympic sports."

So true. What’s aggravating is that men’s gymnastics is always given prime-time network exposure every four years at the Olympics. Not to mention the fact the ratings for that coverage are always very high. The fact that the NCAA doesn’t bend over backwards to champion more collegiate opportunities for male gymnasts is maddening. Men’s gymnastics is a PREMIER Olympic sport.

Case in point. California, especially Southern California, is a hotbed for gymnastics talent…arguably the largest hotbed in the country. Yet California is home to only two NCAA Division I men’s gymnastics programs…Cal and Stanford. Southern California has no Division I men’s program! This means that Southern California is a net exporter of male gymnasts to the rest of the country. Simply abominable!

No arguments here. Be sure to read the rest.

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You About High School Sports and Title IX

Yesterday, we passed along an article where College Sports Council Chairman Eric Pearson had this to say about the next frontier in Title IX enforcement:

While much of the Title IX enforcement centers on quotas, there are other huge red flags to be wary of, such as the reaction to some volunteer efforts and donations of parents and community members' for high school sports teams, Pearson said.

And, as if on cue, the following article appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times (PA):

The federal government is trying to determine if the Bristol Borough school district discriminated against high school female athletes, according to the United States Department of Education.

The accusations stem from the recent establishment of a football boosters club, according to a letter of inquiry sent to Bristol Superintendent Broadus Davis from the department's Office of Civil Rights.

“The complaint alleges that the district is discriminating against high school female athletes on the basis of sex by using funds from booster clubs to provide male athletes with benefits that are greater than those the district provides to female athletes,” said David Blom, in the letter.

The fear, according to Blom, is that it would result in various inequities including equipment and supplies, game and practice schedules, locker rooms, and practice and competitive facilities.

Incredible. Parents help set up a booster club to support a high school football team and the federal government launches a discrimination investigation? What's next, authorizing a wire tap to investigate a bake sale?

One would think that in a country where so many schools fail at -- shall we say, basic blocking and tackling -- that the Federal Government might have better things to do. The story has since been picked up by the AP, which means it ran on the wires and appeared in newspapers across the state of Pennsylvania. Here's hoping lots of people read it.

Are High Schools Next in the Title IX Crosshairs?

That's a question that Jennifer Kabbany asked today in the North County Times (CA):

"If every woman decided she didn't want to play sports, then the way this law is applied, there could be no men's sports whatsoever," Steven Gieseler, an attorney with the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, SAID in a telephone interview.

While these quota regulations have traditionally been enforced at colleges, now extremists are coming after high schools.

"We haven't seen the widescale elimination of boy's teams yet at the high school level, but we are seeing the very early stages of this pressure," said Eric Pearson, chairman of the College Sports Council.

Pearson cites statements from feminist advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., asking for greater Title IX enforcement at the high school level, as well as a bill pending in Congress asking that high schools report their gender participation levels to the feds.

While much of the Title IX enforcement centers on quotas, there are other huge red flags to be wary of, such as the reaction to some volunteer efforts and donations of parents and community members' for high school sports teams, Pearson said.

There's more, including the rude awakening that Title IX makes sure that no good deed goes unpunished when it comes to parents who donate their time and money to improving facilities for boy's sports.

CSC Lodges Official Complaint With Associated Press Over WSF Study

I'm sure most of you will recall that the College Sports Council had all sorts of problems with a study that was released recently by the Women's Sports Foundation entitled, “Who's Playing College Sports? Money, Race and Gender.” But while we had multiple concerns over the study, we were just as alarmed by the way some in the media chose to cover it, especially when it came to a September 24, 2008 piece by Melissa Murphy of the Associated Press (AP).

Earlier today, CounterPoint CEO and CSC Media Director Jim McCarthy sent the following letter to the AP outlining the CSC's concerns:

October 6, 2008

Ms. Terry Taylor,
Sports Editor
Associated Press
450 W. 33rd St.
New York, NY 10001

Dear Ms. Taylor,

As the Media Director for the College Sports Council, a coalition of coaches, athletes and parents working for reform of Title IX, I want to convey how troubled we were by several aspects of Melissa Murphy’s reporting last week about a research study on how the law affects sports participation rates. The story appeared on September 24 and was about a Women’s Sports Foundation report on participation rates in college athletics titled, “Who's Playing College Sports? Money, Race and Gender.”

Here are the specific problems:

• Although the WSF is an advocacy group with a specific, ideological outlook on the Title IX issue, Murphy failed to identify them as such. Instead, they were simply presented as an objective source, with no description of their political disposition or activities. There was also no attempt at all in the story to question the methodology or the findings of the report.

• Our group, the College Sports Council, represents athletes, coaches and parents who are working to reform Title IX’s enforcement mechanism and have long been the primary group on the other side of this issue – pursuing federal litigation, for example, and studies on Title IX-related data. Indeed, the WSF’s own report indicates that it was pursued in part because of research that CSC released last year – research that casts significant doubt on WSF’s approach to participation analysis. Murphy is aware of this and yet didn’t reach out to us for comment or reaction on the WSF study. By contrast, every time we have issued public analysis in the past, Murphy has called WSF for their input.

• Murphy also failed to inform readers that the researcher who produced the study, John Cheslock of the University of Arizona, is a paid consultant to the WSF. Instead, he was simply presented as an objective academic.

• The story says the report relied on “data from the NCAA and Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act.” This misleads readers in two critical respects. First, the NCAA refuses to publicly reveal their source data, showing school-by-school reporting, which means it is totally unverifiable. Second, the data listed as “1995 EADA” was not collected by the government at all – as readers are led to believe. Instead, it was collected and compiled by the WSF itself using what they claim was an EADA form. That data too is not publicly available.

• Murphy’s reporting appears to breach a number of commonly accepted journalism guidelines on social science coverage. The bias or agenda of a group presenting research data should be revealed – and yet the article obscured it. Financial remuneration to researchers should be disclosed – yet readers went uninformed. Source data should be available for scrutiny and verification – and yet that data is being withheld -- which means the reporter herself has never even seen it, let alone readers. Finally, if the findings are in dispute – as they certainly are here – alternative or critical sources should be heard – and yet the article ignored them entirely.

CSC representatives brought all of this information to Murphy’s attention multiple times in the last two weeks but, to our surprise, she seemed utterly unconcerned. I personally asked if she would follow up with WSF about having paid Cheslock, about misrepresenting the EADA data, and about producing their source material. She said she would not and disagreed that these were even problems in the first place.

The way that Title IX is being enforced is an important national issue and we are pleased to see that the AP is following it. But the impact and policy prescriptions about Title IX are in serious and valid dispute. Readers deserve to know that – and to hear from both sides of the issue. They also deserve to have accurate and reliable information about the research that undergirds the public discourse.

We would like to ask for some explanation of how Murphy’s reporting could have gotten past editors with these obvious flaws and what corrective or clarifying action AP will take to set the record straight. Thank you in advance for looking into the matter.

Regards,

Jim McCarthy
Media Director
The College Sports Council

We'll keep you updated as to what we hear back from the AP. Stay tuned.

IWF Releases Title IX Primer

Our friends at IWF, Allison Kasic and Kimberly Schuld have just finished writing a primer on Title IX. Click here to download it.

CSC Statement on WSF Study on Athletic Participation Rates

The College Sports Council released the following statement earlier today:

Washington, D.C., September 26, 2008 – The College Sports Council (CSC), a national coalition of coaches, parents, athletes, and alumni, calls attention to unverifiable source data collected by the WSF and NCAA used in a recently released Women's Sports Foundation study titled 'Who's Playing College Sports? Money, Race and Gender."

"This report includes aggregate unverifiable data compiled by biased entities. It's impossible to authenticate their numbers, which therefore calls into question the accuracy of their findings," said Eric Pearson, Chairman of the CSC.

Following are three examples of problems with the WSF study:

1. WSF led reporters to believe that all numbers labeled "EADA" were from government sources. The data labeled as '1995-96 EADA' were in fact collected by the WSF in a survey conducted in 1995. These numbers are not posted on the US Department of Education website with other EADA data and cannot be verified by the general public by reference to any governmental source.

Specifically, the "new" WSF study referred to source data in their 2007 study by Dr. Cheslock. On page 24, paragraph 1 of the 2007 study, it reveals that the WSF collected the data themselves using an EADA form, thus factually that data was not collected by the government. It was a WSF survey.

2. There are over 1,000 member schools in the NCAA. The WSF used data from only 738 schools, omitting 29% of NCAA member schools from the study.

3. The NCAA refuses to provide school by school data making their aggregate numbers unverifiable and therefore unreliable.

Further, the NCAA cannot be considered an objective source. The NCAA leadership is on record as being closely aligned with groups fighting all forms of Title IX reform and has attempted to quash any debate about the effect of Title IX on decreasing collegiate participation opportunities in the Olympic sports.

For example, in response to a question about the 2005 Title IX policy clarification issued by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, NCAA President Myles Brand said, "we're waiting to see what the Women's Law Center and others might do. We're supportive of their actions" (Reported by the Washington Post, and referring to the National Women's Law Center, a leading gender quota advocacy group based in Washington, DC.).

In 2007, the CSC released a longitudinal study of NCAA Participation Data that revealed the following findings:

o More than 2,200 men's athletic teams were eliminated since 1981– a consistent, declining trend of 17 percent.

o The total number of women's teams has outstripped the number of men's teams since 1995. The number of men's teams per school is dropping to less than 7.8 per school while the number of women's teams per school has risen to more than 8.7 per school.

o Some of the sports that have been hardest hit include swimming, wrestling and tennis. Men's gymnastics is now on the verge of extinction, with only 19 teams remaining in the country and falling.

For the complete study, see: http://savingsports.org/presentation/.

Additional Background and Sources: http://www.collegesportscouncil.org.