Logan Moragne
Research Paper
Sports Law
Dr. LaVetter
Arkansas State University
November 30, 2016
I have decided to do my research and scholarly articles on Title IX. I will explain what is, what makes it important, the correct and wrong ways it is used and how each case concerns itself with Title IX. Title IX basically states that 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.Before Title IX things were different. The primary physical activities for girls were cheerleading and square-dancing. Only 1 in 27 girls played high school sports. There were virtually no college scholarships for female athletes. And female college athletes received only two percent of overall athletic budgets. Since Title XI there's been real growth in the number of women who participate in sports, receive scholarships, and benefit from increased budgets. There are more opportunities to compete at elite levels through competitions like the Olympics, World Championships and professional leagues. Even more importantly, we know that playing sports makes women healthier. They're less likely to smoke, drink, use drugs and experience unwanted pregnancies. Studies also link sports participation to reduced incidences of breast cancer and osteoporosis later in life. These health benefits for women and society alone should be reason to keep Title IX strong. Title IX is still critical because the general perception is that girls now have equal opportunities in all areas of athletics, but that's just not true. Schools are providing 1.3 million fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school as compared to boys. While more than half of the students at NCAA schools are women, they receive only 44% of the athletic participation opportunities. Female athletes at the typical Division I-FBS (formerly Division I-A) school receive roughly 28% of the total money spent on athletics, 31% of the money goes to recruiting dollars, and 42% of it goes to athletic scholarship dollars.
The first article I will discuss is a pretty recent one. It involves Florida State football player Jameis Winston and a woman. The case states that a woman who accused 2013 Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston of raping her in 2012 filed a federal lawsuit, accusing Florida State University of violating her Title IX rights. What really happened was immediately after being alerted to a possible sexual assault of a student, the FSU Police Department (“FSUPD”) responded and determined the alleged incident occurred off campus. The first time anyone at FSU outside the campus police learned about the alleged sexual assault was in January 2013, when a Tallahassee PD detective called the Jameis on his cellphone. The athlete immediately notified the Athletics Department, where officials referred him and his family to a Tallahassee attorney. Shortly thereafter, the attorney informed the Athletics Department that TPD was no longer pursuing the case. The Athletics Department also considered statements by the Jameis and two other FSU student athletes who were present at the encounter. All three independently described it as consensual. Based on that and the TPD's decision, the Athletics Department did not file a report with the University's Title IX administrator or the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities. Aug. 6, 2014-after multiple requests by FSU over the previous 20 months–the attorney agreed to make the complainant available for an interview. Based on her statement, the University reopened a confidential Title IX investigation. The case ended in a settlement in 2015. This concerns Title IX in multiple ways. The FSU Athletics Department chose to violate school policy and not report to the FSU administration that their star recruit had been identified as the suspect in the December 7, 2012 rape investigation. For the next eleven months, Florida State University didn't do anything to the plaintiff’s report of rape while the FSU Athletics Department continued to keep the incident a secret, the suit alleged. Title IX guidelines issued to all schools by the U.S. Department of Education call for most investigations to be concluded in roughly 60 days, but Florida State administrators have acknowledged that they did not attempt to question Winston until January 2014.
Article #2 is concerning Cohen v. Brown University. This goes a little bit further into title XI concerning the 3 prong test. There are 3 things that play a part in this law. Whether the average person, applying contemporary group models", would find that the work, taken as a whole. Whether the job describes in a patiently offensive way or sexual conduct. Whether the work, “is taken as a whole, lacks a serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”. Brown University had 15 women’s teams and 16 men’s teams, but 37% of athletes are women and the other half is men. Brown cut 4 sports, two from men and two from women. Women is 48% of the school but 38% women athletes and they took most of the women’s sports money. Cohen and several other athletes sued Brown for violating Title IX. Brown appealed. The First Circuit upheld the injunction. Thereafter, a district court found that Brown had violated Title IX. The court ruled in favor of the women that filed the suit, because Brown showed discrimination towards women. The court ended up changing their mind because they showed that they had a plan and was given an opportunity to submit another compliance letter. This deals with Title IX because they said the universities interscholastic athletics program discriminated against women.
The next article I will be discussing is Pederosn v. LSU. The female student sued their school for not letting them get an equal chance to participate like the male athletes get to do. To go more in detail, the women wanted LSU to have fast pitch softball and soccer teams. They tried to say that the sports didn’t generate enough interest to add any more teams, but the court did not take the excuses and stated that they were stereotypical. The court also found evidence that sexism was clearly in place. For example, the athletic director referred to one of the plaintiffs as "honey," "sweetie," and "cutie," and said he favored adding soccer, "a more feminine sport," because female soccer players "would look cute running around in their soccer shorts." This is one of the prime examples of Title XI that you hear about especially with the sexual harassment. LSU even argued that if they broke the rules of Title IX it was unintentional, but that still isn’t an excuse. However, the court did reverse its holding that it was unintentional. It was obvious that LSU treated the girls differently and that is all it took even though they overturned the other ruling them treating the women different was all the court needed. “Finally, the Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court's ruling decertifying Pederson's putative class. The court held that a class consisting of potential female student-athletes who were not given the opportunity to compete in varsity intercollegiate athletics”. With the school stating that the unintentionally did Title IX, LSU didn’t provide the girls with the same chances as the men which means they intentionally committed Title XI.
Article #4 is talking about the reduction of male athletic scholarships to comply with Title IX. The case is Neal v. Board of Trustees of the California State University. “California federal court's decision granting a preliminary injunction and held that reducing the number of athletic scholarships for an over-represented gender is a suitable way for a university to comply with Title IX”. This all started when the school realized that the percentage of athletic scholarships given to women was less than the female undergraduates enrolled in the school. To try to fix it they reduced the number of they took away scholarships of the men’s wrestling team. The plaintiffs were Neal and several other wrestlers of CSU’s wrestling team. They claimed that in order to be fair and fix gender disputes was appropriate only to be fair give men and women the same opportunity. He felt they didn’t consider the interest level in sports participation. The Board of Trustees talked about how them taking away the wrestling teams scholarships was the right thing to do, due to the imbalance of scholarships given to a gender as compared to the percentage of students by each gender. This is very similar to Cohen v. Brown. The Cohen court said that keeping the number of scholarships around the same based on gender is safe and that the university can use Title IX to comply. For Cohen things would have been a little different now though with the steady increase in women athletes. Studies have shown that women increased in that area by a healthy amount almost doubling what it used to be.
Article 5 shows how Kentucky High School Athletic Association did not violate Title IX. On March 20, 2000, in a split decision the U.S. Court appealed the KHSAA when they chose not to sanction girls softball. The problem is that the suit was filed because of interpretation of Unintentional discrimination under Title IX and the possibility of recovering monetary damages. The KHSAA manages interscholastic athletics in public and private high schools in Kentucky. Due to the low amount of resources the board in Kentucky took it away unless 25% of schools in the state were willing to play. That’s the 25% rule. Unfortunately only 26 schools in the state were willing to play. That is barely 9% of the high schools in Kentucky. They tried to do a second survey and only 17 percent of the schools in the state agreed this time they would participate. This means that the KHSAA’s rule had not been met thus helping their case in not violating Title IX. The girls that made the lawsuit explained how they will not get the opportunity to earn college athletic scholarships for softball because they were not given the same opportunity as everyone else. This helps the KHSAA’s ruling. Under Title IX without evidence of intentional discrimination they cannot be ruled as committing the act of Title IX. Considering the plaintiffs claim, the held monetary damages under Title IX are only available when a facially plain policy is being challenged.
The next article is Gonyo v. Drake University. Drake is a University in Iowa organized as a non profit corporation. Male athletes hold 47% of athletic scholarships given out by the school. Only 43 % of the school is also a fact you need to know. The school told the wrestlers at the school they were all given scholarships and total commitment. The school dropped its overall budget, reducing it by $170,000 and a little bit more the next year. The athletic director realized he could not fund all of the school’s programs at a competitive level. This made them drop the wrestling program. They seemed to have a lack of everything from sponsorships, loans, boosters, basically no support. Title IX and gender equality motivated Drakes decision to terminate the wrestling program. All of the wrestlers that had a scholarship at the school was offered to finish school and just graduate as a normal student. Title IX has come a long way I feel like it is here to protect the students and each program the suit is coming towards. I agree with each one the decisions that was made and each plaintiff has the right to do so. I can definitely understand both sides of each argument and I see where everyone is coming from.