A powerful new report by USA Today highlights how top U.S. colleges and universities are still falling short of complying with Title IX, the landmark law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government.
Most notable among the findings in USA Today’s comprehensive data analysis, which centered on 107 public schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision during the 2018-19 school year, was widespread use of roster manipulation as well as remarkable disparities in spending on travel, equipment and recruiting for women’s teams vs. their male counterparts.
Passed 50 years ago this June as part of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the pivotal 37-word sentence reads: “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.”
For those charged with implementing Title IX, it became obvious that one clear way to close the gender gap at the collegiate level was to require schools to provide equitable opportunities for women and men to play sports. However, USA Today found that schools have been abusing the accepted rules in ways that allow them “to comply with the letter of the law while violating its spirit.”
According to the report, the schools collectively added more than 3,600 additional participation “opportunities” for female athletes during the 2018-19 academic year despite not adding one new women’s team to any athletic program. Schools accomplished this by counting participants in ways that inflate women’s rosters:
On the money front, the USA Today analysis found that for every dollar that schools spent on travel, equipment and recruiting for men’s teams, they spent just 71 cents on women. Over two seasons (2018-19 and 2019-20), that added up to $125 million more spent on men than women.
USA Today focused solely on sports with comparable men’s and women’s squads – basketball, baseball and softball, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, and tennis – and found that spending on soccer and swimming was roughly equal, while the greatest disparities were found in basketball, where coaches and athletic departments spent 63 cents on women for every dollar spent on men.
Some notable spending numbers:
However, compliance with Title IX is not based on specific teams but rather on a school’s entire athletic department, and the U.S. Department of Education only requires that spending on similar teams be equitable, which does not mean equal.
The overall result is a misleading picture that makes schools look better than they are at providing equitable playing opportunities for women. Additionally, the loopholes exposed by USA Today’s report reveal it’s the reporting guidelines themselves that need to be scrutinized more closely. In particular, the fact that Title IX compliance hinges on roster spots and not distinct athletes should be reexamined.
“If people, meaning athletic administrators and college presidents, wanted to be in compliance with Title IX because it was the right thing to do, they would’ve done it already,” said Nicole LaVoi, director of the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, via USA Today.
“They’ve had 50 years to figure it out,” she added. “So there’s no, ‘Well just give us time. We’ll figure it out.’ No, they’ve had 50 years. And so many schools are still struggling with this.”
USA Today, whose team included eight reporters, worked in collaboration with the Knight-Newhouse Data project at Syracuse University for the report. Its comprehensive data analysis compared athletic participation numbers reported by schools to the U.S. Department of Education against four different data sources: NCAA reports, online rosters, internal rosters (called “squad lists”) and reams of competition results. Additionally, reporters interviewed 51 Title IX experts and attorneys, lawmakers, athletes, coaches and athletic department administrators.
The full USA Today report can be found here.
PARK CITY, UT — Finishing fourth for the third straight week left a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of U.S. luge athletes Summer Britcher and Emily Sweeney, who missed out on a podium finish Friday by 14 thousandths of a second in women’s doubles luge at the World Cup at Utah Olympic Park.
“It’s a bummer. We’re bummed out right now,” said the 29-year-old Sweeney, who joined forces with Britcher, 28, ahead of this season’s debut of women’s doubles as part of the official World Cup program.
The pair posted a combined two-run time of 1:28.969, finishing +0.667 behind winners Andrea Vötter and Marion Oberhofer of Italy. The American duo, who boast five Olympic appearances between them as singles athletes, are looking to replicate their singles’ success while giving each other plenty of grace while they navigate this new discipline together.
“I would say the takeaways are that we’re supporting each other very well,” added Sweeney, who’s had to scale back on her training this week due to some whiplash-like symptoms in her neck. “I think that the level of understanding that Summer has shown me over this week has been great. We didn’t take the Nation’s Cup run yesterday, and that was because of me, but I felt really supported and understood.”
But the feeling is mutual, as Britcher noted she’s been dealing with what she calls a “mystery injury” with her fingers and says Sweeney has picked up the slack without hesitation.
“I haven’t been able to paddle in most of our training runs, and she’s like, ‘Okay, we’ll just make what we can of the run.’ So there’s been a lot of understanding and support, which is a very positive takeaway,” said Britcher, who has five World Cup wins on her resume – the most of any U.S. women’s luge athlete ever.
For Vötter and Oberhofer, the win Friday marked their second consecutive women’s doubles luge victory and put them into the lead in the season-long points standings. The Italian team posted a time of 1:28.302 and set a new track record on their first run with a 44.044, breaking the previous record set by Austria’s Selina Egle and Lara Michaela.
Rounding out the podium were Germany’s Jessica Degenhardt and Cheyenne Rosenthal at +0.603 back, while Canada’s Caitlin Nash and Natalie Corless placed third (+0.653).
Placing fifth were fellow Americans Maya Chan and Reannyn Weiler (+0.698), while Egle and Michaela placed sixth and relinquished their spot atop the points standings. American sliders Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby placed seventh (+1.073).
With three U.S. teams competing in women’s doubles, Britcher said the camaraderie has been another bonus as they all venture into this new normal together.
“I think we have a bright future,” Britcher said of the U.S. women. “It’s really cool to have two other teams that we can work with and cheer on and get those fist bumps at the start. And Maya and Reannyn are showing a lot of speed as well.”
“Some really impressive saves too,” added Sweeney. “They’ll get there, and it’s fun to be able to cheer them along the way.”
Britcher and Sweeney will both compete in the women’s singles and sprint World Cup races Saturday, and they are finding the silver lining in the quick turnaround time in their schedule as well.
“We did a lot of training and switching back and forth in the fall,” Sweeney shared. “That was one of our big focuses, knowing that this was going to be the type of schedule we’re looking at this season. We did a lot of the training to prepare for it, and at this point, we just need to trust our skills and our training and just go for it.”
Added Britcher: “The one positive I’m taking away this moment is, normally if I miss a podium by 14 thousandths of a second, I would be having quite a pity party tonight. But we don’t have time. We have another World Cup tomorrow and there’s just simply no time for that.”
For U.S. Women’s National Team volleyball players Kelsey Robinson Cook and Justine Wong-Orantes, both of whom were part of Team USA’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the idea of playing their sport professionally in America was an almost foreign concept.
Since finishing their collegiate careers at Nebraska – Robinson Cook graduated in 2013 with All-American honors, while Wong-Orantes finished in 2016 as a two-time All-American and 2015 NCAA champion – the athletes joke that they’ve been living out of suitcase ever since. But that looks to change in the foreseeable future, as both athletes announced this week their signings with League One Volleyball (LOVB, pronounced “love”), which is creating the first professional full-season indoor volleyball league in the U.S.
“[Winning the gold medal in Tokyo] was this special moment for the sport of volleyball, and I think it showed just how important the sport is for women in the United States,” said the 30-year-old Robinson Cook, who hails from Bartlett, Ill., but has spent her pro career playing in China, Puerto Rico and Turkey and currently is on her second stint in Italy. “You can see — our best-of-the-best are winning a gold medal — so we deserve to come home, and we deserve to play in front of our friends and family. And that’s what this sport needs.”
“I’m just so, so excited that it’s all coming into fruition,” adds 27-year-old Wong-Orantes, a southern California native who’s played in Germany and France since turning pro. “And I’m really excited for the sport, because the more and more I look back on especially collegiate volleyball, I just feel like the game is growing exponentially, and so to have a league in America will just speak volumes to how much the sport has grown.”
LOVB is capitalizing on that popularity and growth, using a “community up” approach that began with a small network of junior volleyball clubs in 11 cities across the country and has grown 270 percent in the past year alone. LOVB currently boasts 769 teams across 30 clubs in 18 states, and the league plans to double its offerings ahead of the launch of its professional league in 2024.
“When you think about those numbers, and you think about the fact that this is a sport where the women’s game supersedes the men’s game, it’s really compelling,” said LOVB CEO Katlyn Gao. “[Women’s volleyball] is already well established — we are internationally winning gold — and there’s no reason why this can’t be the next major league sport, and the first one to be female. And so the fact that someone like Kelsey and Justine, who really self-selected into being part of LOVB from the very beginning, are signing on – it was so organic.”
The signings also further the relationship that Robinson Cook and Wong-Orantes currently have with LOVB, where they’ve been active members of the league’s Athletes Council since 2020.
“I’d been approached so many times with the idea of professional volleyball league in America that I initially kept LOVB at arm’s length,” admits Robinson Cook. “I’d heard it all. …But the minute they started speaking on it, talking about the ideas and the model that they wanted to use to start this league, I thought, ‘This could happen.’ I got off that first phone call and started talking to my husband, saying I think this could be something. And obviously, I’ve stayed on ever since. It’s been really, really cool to be a part of.”
A key component of that model centers on the league’s commitment to equality, diversity and equity. Wong-Orantes was especially impressed with the league’s consistent, personal dialogue with members of the Athletes Council, ensuring all aspects of the league’s plans, schedules, salaries and benefits offered would be met favorably by the player community. Those benefits include competitive salaries with built-in marketing contracts and healthcare benefits like maternity leave, childcare support, fertility support, athlete care and more. Additionally, LOVB plans to introduce several options for players’ advancement on and off the court, including professional opportunities to support players in their post-playing career.
This week’s athlete signings cap off a busy quarter for LOVB, which announced in September it has raised $16.75 million in Series A funding from a diverse range of investors including Billie Jean King, Kevin Durant and Chelsea Handler. The league’s total funding currently stands at more than $24 million, and it has the buy-in of the U.S. national team, which Gao says is attracted to LOVB’s sustainable approach.
“We’re building that path beyond college, and we’re building it as a full-time indoor season league, so that makes it really compelling,” explained Gao. “What they’re attracted to regarding League One Volleyball in particular, is that community approach that they very much embrace as the right way of going about building something that lasts. We’re not just chasing something shiny.
“The popularity [of volleyball] is decades in the making, and we want to make sure that this is a long-lasting, thriving league that is going to be the NBA for volleyball,” she continued. “So they really care about how is it done. It’s female-founded, it’s female-lead, but also, we’re making very disciplined business decisions to make sure that this isn’t something that’s flashy. Of course, flashy is exciting, but that’s all in short duration if we don’t create the league in a way that is sustainable for the long term.”
To that end, Wong-Orantes can see a time when the tables are turned for players looking to play professionally after college. Afterall, collegiate programs often recruit internationally, and she can imagine a time in the not-so-distant future when the best players in the world want to make the U.S. their home.
“I’m excited to see everyone’s reaction — like all across the world,” said Wong-Orantes. “There’s going to be a new and complete league in America, and I believe international players could honestly gravitate to it. Everyone already thinks America is a great place to play and just to visit, so I hope that it gets to that point.”
