title ix Archives - KEYTLaw's Blog

Title IX Soccer Settlement in NYC Puts Girls and Boys on the Sidelines

More harm caused by Title IX – hundreds of high school soccer players no longer able to play soccer because of a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three girl players. Girls played soccer in the spring and boys played in the fall. The three plaintiffs said that requiring girls high school soccer in the spring discriminated against girls because it harmed their chances of playing college soccer. The reason the boys and girls did not play at the same time is because the schools did not have enough soccer fields for the sexes to play at the same time. The three girls won and now boys and girls must play soccer in the fall. The result is fewer soccer players. See the story in Saving Sports that states:

“boys teams forfeited 84 soccer matches and girls squads forfeited 82 matches a year ago, and 300 fewer girls played soccer after the realignment took effect last fall. Nearly a month into the 2010 season, Sprance has counted 59 girls forfeits and 45 for boys. Two boys programs and two girls programs have already been dropped, and Sprance estimated that more than 500 girls will have stopped playing soccer as a result of the season switch.”

Federal Judge Rules Cheerleading is not a Sport – Yes, Really!

Quinnipiac University dropped volleyball as a girls’ sport because it could not afford the expense so naturally the girls sued. The girls claimed that QU must pay for them to play a college sport because under a federal law known as Title IX, the school could not drop volleyball because then its ratio of mens’ sports participants to womens’ sports participants would drop below that required by Title XI. QU had 62% women and 38% men enrolled during the period in question. Without counting cheerleading as a sport, the percent of women in QU’s sports program fell to a disgustingly low and clearly discriminatory 58%. Big brother cannot allow such an injustice to stand.

Title IX is a perfect example of the federal government having too much power. Title IX does specify participation rules that colleges with sports must follow or experience the wrath (a cut off of federal funds, which means financial death) of the Department of Education. Should government in a free country be dictating to colleges how many girls and boys can play college sports?

QU replaced girls volleyball with less expensive cheerleading, but the federal judge ruled that college cheerleading does not qualify as a college sport and so the number of cheerleaders on the squad will not be counted in determiing if QU has the proper ratio of boys to girls. Result: Ratio test failure and QU must spend more money and continue the girls volleyball team. One of the common solutions colleges have when they are bleeding money on sports and need to keep their ratios up to the federal requirement is to drop both boys and girls teams. This is one reason a lot of mens’ college sports teams have disappeared since the inception of Title IX.

See the judge’s ruling. See also “Judge: Quinnipiac violated female athletes’ rights.”

Litigating the Number of Men vs. Women in College Sports: The Ongoing Folly of Title IX

Minding the Campus: “Connecticut’s Quinnipiac College, best known for its political polling, is now at the center of the newest round in the controversy over Title IX and women’s sports. In a trial that opened last week, a federal judge must decide whether competitive cheerleading should count as a sport for gender equity purposes. The case illustrates the complexities — and some would say, the inanities — of the debate over gender and college athletics.”

This is Not a Joke: Trial Begins to Answer the Question is Cheerleading a Sport?

New Haven Register: “After 13 months and costs estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the six litigants of the Quinnipiac University women’s volleyball program and Quinnipiac University will be back in United States District Court in Bridgeport Monday to determine whether the university’s elimination of the volleyball program violated federal Title IX guidelines.” One of the issues in the case is whether replacing the 11 lost women’s volleyballers with additional cheerleaders can offset the loss of the volleyball program.

Title IX 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.” Translation: Colleges and universities cannot have sports programs that have more men than women or Big Brother will sue and force the schools to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers instead of students.

When it dropped women’s volleyball, Quinnipiac also dropped men’s outdoor track and golf. It later dropped men’s indoor track. You might ask why does the federal government care about how many people of each gender participate in college sports? Nobody knows except the politically correct do gooders who see discrimination behind every door.