“Barriers to Fair Play”: How Title IX has Impacted K-12 Education

Presented by:Shannon Butler, Deb Ellis and Heather Boyd

EPPL 660Spring 2008

What is Title IX?

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…

ARE YOU SMART ENOUGH ABOUT TITLE IX?

Question

Big Sports High School spent $.5 million within boy’s athletics, and $.1 million within girl’s athletics.

Is Big Sports High in compliance with Title IX?

Question

Students in Sum County take the same quarterly tests in English each year. The girls scored 20-40% higher than the boys for three consecutive years.

Is Sum County in compliance with Title IX?

Question

An equal amount of money is spent on boys’ and girls’ basketball at Big Sports High School. The band plays at all home boy’s basketball games.

Is this an issue that involves Title IX?

Unpacking the Law

In 1979, OCR developed the

Three-Part Test

Schools need to only meet one of the prongs to be in compliance.

Unpacking the Law

1. Males and females participate in athletics in numbers substantially proportional to their enrollment numbers.

Unpacking the Law

2. The school has a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interests and abilities of members of the underrepresented sex.

Unpacking the Law

3. The institution’s existing programs fully and effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

Unpacking the Law

Franklin V. Gwinnett County Public Schools (1992)

- punitive damages McCormick v. School District of

Mamaroneck (2004) & Communities for Equity v. Michagan High School Athletic Association (2006)

- fair sports seasons

What has Title IX done for high school athletics?

In 1971-72, the number of girls playing high school sports was just under 300,000. By the 2005-06 school year, that number had increased to 2.9 million. (National Federation of State High School Associations, 2006)

What has Title IX done for high school athletics?

What has Title IX done for high school athletics?

Current Inequalities

Girls have nearly 20% fewer opportunities to participate in high school and college sports than boys

High school girls have 2,953,355 athletic participation opportunities, while high school boys have 4, 206, 549

Women are only 19% of the head coaches of both women’s and men’s teams. Women also make up only 35% of athletic administrators and 19% of athletic directors

Current Issues

Source: National Women’s Law Center

Holt High School, Tuscaloosa, AL May 2005

Between 2002-2006

Opposition to Title IX

Opponents say its enforcement regulations are a blunt instrument used to kill men’s teams.

The OCR states, “It is contrary to the spirit of Title IX for the government to require or encourage an institution to eliminate athletic teams.”

Opposition to Title IX A student at Boone County blames a

lawsuit for his soccer team not receiving new uniforms. He stated, “It’s not right what they did. They’re trying to take advantage of the system. It’s awful.”

A school board in Oklahoma had to renovate the softball fields and make them equitable with the baseball fields. The principal stated, “I still don’t feel like we discriminated against anybody…Title IX is the law, and we’ve come to accept…the unfairness of it…We have to go the legal way even if it’s an overwhelming burden on the community.”

Recommendations for Administrators

Compliance with the Three-Part Test

Equal Publicity Fair Funding Accommodate Interests Comparable Facilities &

Resources Coaches & Salaries Tutoring, Practices &

Games

Just the Facts!

Here is how you play! Read through all four statements. Select the one that is a fib. Make your selection by going to that

corner of the room. Discuss why you selected that answer

with the other people in that group.

Which is the fib?

A. Girls receive 1,250,000 fewer opportunities to play high school sports than do boys.

B. Girls who are not involved in physical activity by age 10 have only a 10% chance of being athletic when they are 25.

C. Physical inactivity is much more common among females than males.

D. 70% of women identified as key leaders in Fortune 500 companies participated in sports while growing up.

Source: Library of Congress, 2007

Which is the fib?A. More than 400 men’s sports teams have

been dropped by universities in the Title IX era, 170 of them in men’s gymnastics.

B. At the University of Miami there are 2 track scholarships available for men and 18 for women.

C. In 1972, only 7% of law school graduates were women. By 2002, that number had risen to 47%.

D. The majority of litigation regarding Title IX has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, not the defendants.

Source: USA Today, 2002.

Which is the fib?

A. In 1972, Congress enacted Title IX, but there was no mention at all of athletics.

B. In 1980, DOE was given oversight of Title IX through the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

C. In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that plaintiff’s filing Title IX lawsuits are not entitled to receive punitive damages.

D. In 1996, OCR issued clarifications of the three-part “Effective Accommodation Test”.

Which is the fib?A. There were 416 athletics complaints filed with

OCR between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2006.

B. Basketball is the sport most sited in complaints about K-12 athletics.

C. A basketball coach in western Massachusetts told parents that the girls practice was shorter than the boys team practice because girls didn’t have the attention span or the interest to focus on basketball for two hours at a time.

D. In OCR’s Kansas City Office, it took nearly 4.5 years to resolve one complaint and 3.5 years to resolve another.

Sources: National Women’s Law Center