Every so often, I've seen people get into arguments over what is and is not a "real" sport? For example, is Bowling a sport? It does take skill & it's competitive, but detractors might argue you can also drink beer & eat pizza while doing it. The same thing could be said about Poker & Billiards too. How about ballroom dancing as a sport? Competitive ballroom dancing (called "Dancesport") has gained recognition as a sport from the International Olympic Committee (although it's still not a medal event).
According to the AP, a federal judge in Connecticut is going to decide whether Cheerleading is a sport for the purpose of Title IX. The issue stems from Quinnipiac University attempting to get around the "proportionality test" under Title IX by replacing the women's volleyball team with a competitive cheer team.
From the AP:
A federal judge is being asked to decide whether cheerleading can be counted as a sport by schools looking for ways to meet gender-equity requirements.
The issue is part of a lawsuit filed by five members of the volleyball team at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University and coach Robin Sparks last year after the school decided in a budgetary move to eliminate women's volleyball in favor of a competitive cheer squad. Judge Stefan Underhill also will be asked to decide whether Quinnipiac improperly manipulates the size of the rosters of its other teams to get around complying with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics.
Underhill recently agreed to make the lawsuit a class action for all current and future female athletes at Quinnipiac. The case goes to trial in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, beginning Monday.
20 U.S.C. § 1681 or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (also known as Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act) states:
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...
In 1979, the Carter Administration issued a policy interpretation that consisted of a three-prong test for compliance.
- Providing athletic participation opportunities that are substantially proportionate to the student enrollment, OR
- Demonstrate a continual expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex, OR
- Full and effective accommodation of the interest and ability of the underrepresented sex.
To be in compliance, an academic institution receiving federal funds must comply with at least one prong of this test. Most schools attempt to comply with Title IX by way of the first prong (
proportionality) since it's the only choice that can be demonstrated definitively through statistics, where the other two prongs are more open to subjective judgment, and a University's actions may or may not be deemed sufficient. In 1996, the Clinton Administration issued a policy clarification requiring colleges to count every name on a team's roster, scholarship and non-scholarship athletes, starters and nonstarters when considering proportionality. In 2005, the Bush Administration issued their own policy clarification that would of allowed schools to conduct a survey to gauge the sports interest of females in the student body. Women's groups argued this created a huge loophole by allowing for a survey that might under-represent the actual number of females interested in sports at a given University. Also, the NCAA let it be known they would refuse to accept programs based on surveys gauging sports interests as compliance with Title IX. Back in April, the Obama Administration
rescinded the Bush-era change.
The proportionality test of Title IX has long been controversial, with critics arguing that, while Title IX has undoubtedly helped women who otherwise would never had a chance to seek athletic opportunities in college pursue them, it has been twisted into a "quota" system at the expense of men's wrestling, swimming, and track & field programs. Between 1972 and 2002, more than "170 wrestling programs, 80 men's tennis teams, 70 men's gymnastics teams and 45 men's track teams have been eliminated, according to the General Accounting Office", with critics of proportionality pointing to it as the cause. Also, since the proportionality test counts scholarship & non-scholarship athletes alike, it diminishes the opportunity for male walk-ons and leads to some rather "creative measures" to make the number of male & female athletes equal out.
From an OP-ED by writer John Irving in the NY Times:
The number of collegiate wrestling programs lost to Title IX compliance is staggering; this is especially alarming because, since 1993, wrestling has been a rapidly growing sport at the high-school level. Data compiled by Gary Abbott, director of special projects at USA Wrestling, indicates that in 2001, there were 244,984 athletes wrestling in high school; only 5,966 got to wrestle in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Not to put too fine a point on it: there is only one N.C.A.A. spot for every 41 high-school wrestlers. The numbers have been going downhill for a while. In 1982, there were 363 N.C.A.A. wrestling teams with 7,914 wrestlers competing; in 2001, there were only 229 teams with fewer than 6,000 wrestlers. Yet, in that same period, the number of N.C.A.A. institutions has increased from 787 to 1,049. No wonder wrestlers are unhappy... While eliminating men's sports like wrestling, where the interest in participation is increasing, athletic programs go begging to find women athletes to fill the vacancies on an ever-expanding number of women's teams.
One of the most ludicrous examples of this was the attempt by Arizona State University in Tempe -- a cactus-studded campus in the middle of the Sonoran Desert -- to add a competitive women's rowing team. There's not a lot of water in Arizona. But the school asked the city to create a body of water (by flooding a dry gulch) on which the team could practice. Because of a lack of funds, the school had to drop the plan. This is probably just as well; taxpayer dollars would have financed scholarships either to rowers from out of state or to teach Arizona women (most of whom have never held an oar) how to row. But Arizona State is to be commended. It not only worked to meet the numerical demands of proportionality, it tried to adhere to the original spirit of Title IX by adding opportunities for women, not by cutting opportunities for men.
The other side of this argument retorts that Title IX is being used as a scapegoat in something that isn't a zero sum game. It's also a system that still spends more on men's athletic scholarships than women's.
From the Women's Sports Foundation:
At the college level, male athletes still receive $133 million more scholarship dollars than female athletes every year... However, the scholarship situation is improving.
Proponents of Title IX's proportionality argue the cause of cut men's sports programs is tightened state budgets, coupled with school athletic directors who would rather cut the wrestling or tennis team than cut spending on the football or basketball team.
''It's not Title IX's fault, it's chicken college presidents and athletic directors who won't bite the bullet on the irresponsible spending of their football programs,'' said Donna Lopiano, the executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation and the former women's athletic director at the University of Texas. ''Their football programs are better funded than most professional sports. Football is pitting the victims against the victims. Until they wise up, men's minor sports will be crying the blues as football keeps laughing to the bank.''
Interestingly, both sides agree football is a problem, although they disagree on the solution (elimination of spots vs. counting football players differently than other athletes under Title IX). There is no equivalent female sport to football as far as the number of participants (a Division IA college football team can have 85 scholarship spots, and can carry a 100 players on the roster). So, in order to equal the number of male to female athletes while staying within the budget, universities either cut other male programs, or do like ASU and create a women's rowing team in the middle of the desert.
Or they create a cheer squad and hope the NCAA will accept their math. However, in Quinnipiac's case there's no football team throwing the numbers out of balance. The student population is 62% female to 38% male, and the athletic teams have to closely match proportionately. It has led to some rather creative accounting of which the judge in the case will probably not take kindly to.
From the New Haven Register:
To reach proportionality under prong one, Quinnipiac has elevated "competitive cheer" to varsity status with a roster size reported as high as 40 members.
"When you see what (Quinnipiac’s) practices are... that’s what this whole case is about," said Hogshead-Makar, a three-time Olympic gold medal winner (1984) in swimming. "They use artificially high numbers for cheerleading... they use artificially high numbers in sports where (the female athletes) have no chance of actually being on the team. They triple count girls, but not boys (by counting women’s cross country, women’s indoor track and women’s outdoor track separately). And this is a school that does not have a track. It’s all about fiddling with the numbers."
Whether Quinnipiac is trying to game the system or not, I find the issue interesting; should cheerleading count as a sport for the purpose of Title IX? I could see discounting it if a school was attempting to count a squad that just stands on the sideline at football & basketball games with poms-poms, but competitive cheerleading is a rather established thing in high-schools & at least some colleges (the competitions run on ESPN 2 every now & then). There are some rather involved gymnastic moves as part of the routines as well, with some very serious potential for injury involved.
However, there is an argument that even if something is a sport, it shouldn't be counted as a sport for Title IX if it's a "dead-end activity." That argument was raised recently in Florida where high-school girls are playing flag football.
From the NY Times:
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Flag football, long relegated to family picnics and gym class, has quietly become one of the fastest-growing varsity sports for high school girls in Florida. A decade after it was introduced, nearly 5,000 girls play statewide — a welcome development in a state that, like others, has struggled to close the gender gap in high school athletics. But rather than applaud the new opportunities, some women’s sports advocates call it a dead-end activity. Flag football is played only at the club and intramural level in colleges, and unless one counts the Lingerie Football League, no professional outlets exist. Alaska is the only other state that considers it a varsity sport.
"No one is saying flag football isn’t a great sport to play," said Neena Chaudhry, the senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, which has brought several cases against high schools alleging violations of Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in education. "But I do think it’s relevant to ask questions about whether girls are getting the same kind of educational opportunities as boys."
Florida does not recognize any boys’ sports that have the limited future beyond high school that flag football does. The sport’s supporters say that such criticism misses the point. The aim of high school sports is to encourage students to develop healthy habits, athletic officials say, and few become college athletes. Supporters also ask for patience, saying the sport is still in its infancy.