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Education Law

Title IX Blog

News, legal developments, commentary, and scholarship about Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded schools.
By Erin Buzuvis, Sudha Setty, and Kristine Newhall

Post Frequency: 3.4/day

Last Entry: July 16, 2010 at 08:42:00

Annual NCAA convention addresses arms race

Posted on January 14, 2010
The NCAA is holding its annual meeting this week down in warm, sunny Georgia--well it was supposed to b warm and sunny, anyway.Of course more important things are on the agenda which should distract from the cold snap down south, including the athletics "arms race" which has many a university president, according to a recent report from the Knight Commission, very worried...

Student Whistleblower Loses Retaliation Case

Posted on January 13, 2010
A court in Arizona dismissed a Title IX case against the Gilbert Public Schools, in which the plaintiff argued she was retaliated against for reporting sexual comments by her coach. The plaintiff, Madison Power, was a sophomore on the basketball team when she reported to her parents and ultimately the school district that she had been made uncomfortable by the assistant coach when he made some comments of a sexual nature during a ride home from a tournament out of town...

School District May Be Liable for Football Camp Harassment

Posted on January 12, 2010
A federal district court in California recently denied efforts of the Gustine (California) Unified School District to obtain summary judgment on Title IX claims stemming from peer harassment at a high school football camp. The plaintiff was a rising freshman at Gustine High School when he attended a three-day football camp coordinated by Gustine and another school...

Complaint against Lebanon temporarily suspended

Posted on January 08, 2010
A complaint brought anonymously against Lebanon High School in Oregon has been suspended for now while the school collects data on gender equity in its athletics department.At issue in the original complaint filed in November 2009 was the facilities and benefits received by the baseball team versus the softball team...

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District Court Upholds Title IX and JMU Sports Cuts

Posted on January 06, 2010
Recently a federal district court in Virginia upheld both Title IX and James Madison University's 2006 decision to eliminate ten athletic teams -- a move that impacted more men's teams (7) than women's (3), but which corrected the underrepresentation of women in athletics relative to their percentage of the student body...

Settlement forthcoming in Canton case

Posted on December 26, 2009
After turning down a settlement deal earlier this year, it seems the Canton School District in Illinois has reached an agreement with the plaintiffs. But no one is saying what that deal is--at least not until January 20, 2010 when it will be announced at a school board meeting...

Wisconsin School District Will Offer Girls Hockey

Posted on December 24, 2009
Earlier this year, high school freshman Morgan Hollowell and her father sued the Elmbrook School District in Wisconsin, challenging the district's decision to exclude girls from the hockey cooperative it is joining with another school district. Elmbrook officials cited low interest among girls as its reason for leaving them out of the plan...

Slippery Rock settles--again

Posted on December 23, 2009
The gender equity case against Slippery Rock University that started in 2006 and was reopened last spring when some felt SRU was not meeting the settlement's requirements has settled again. The university has promised to improve the softball stadium, commit $300,000 more than in the original settlement toward improving women's athletics, and provide Title IX training for athletes, coaches, and administrators in the athletic department...

We're sorry to see you go

Posted on December 22, 2009
It is with great amount of sadness that we report, to those who do not yet know, that the Women's Sports Foundation has decided to eliminate the It Takes a Team initiative to eliminate homophobia in sports. Run by Dr. Pat Griffin for the past five years, WSF cited budget woes as the reason behind the decision which will result in the end of the program at the end of January...

Spirit as Sport

Posted on December 21, 2009
Last week the New Mexico Activities Association member-institutions voted to make spirit (cheerleading and dance) a sport. Officials quoted in the news reports about the vote were pretty clear that the primary purpose of this change was to help schools attain compliance with Title IX's proportionality prong...

Sexual harassment in the digital age

Posted on December 17, 2009
I have to admit that the first time I heard of sexting (the sending of sexually suggestive--or explicit!--text messages) was on Glee a few weeks ago. The subject was treated with the amount of levity that is appropriate for the show, but apparently sexting is not always very gleeful for those involved...

Study Uses Title IX to Show Effect of Athletic Participation on Educational Attainment

Posted on December 16, 2009
Via Gregg Easterbrook's recent column at ESPN.com, which criticizes college athletics for failing to seriously incorporate an academic mission, I learned of this forthcoming article by Wharton School professor Betsey Stevenson (draft here), which studies the effect of athletic participation on educational and professional attainment...

UNCC decides to add football

Posted on December 15, 2009
The trustees at the University of North Carolina Charlotte have decided to go forward with the plan to add a football team. The team will make its debut in 2013.This is also a good time to mention that Hofstra University cut its team last week, shortly after Northeastern University announced it was cutting its team due to the expenses associated with the team and the inability to properly upgrade facilities...

Invitational in DC to focus on athletics and equity

Posted on December 10, 2009
We can tell there has been the proverbial changing of the guard in Washington in many ways including the upcoming and inaugural Title IX Holiday Invitational and Conference Classic. Part of its goal is to "celebrate the fact that the Nation?s Capitol is focusing on raising gender equity and program parity with national norms and best practices...

Article Examines Shortcomings in Title IX's Pregnancy Regulations

Posted on December 09, 2009
An article in the latest edition of the Indiana Law Review examines, criticizes, and offers suggestions for improvement to the regulatory provisions that ensure Title IX's protections extend to pregnant students. Author Kendra Fershee, a law professor at UND, first describes and provides historical context for the regulations' main components...

Title IX in the comics

Posted on December 08, 2009
A few summers ago I spent some time hanging out in the archives at Radcliffe College looking at the papers from the Women's Equity Action League, a group that was instrumental in fighting for the passage and enforcement of Title IX in the 1970s and 80s...

The older generation

Posted on December 06, 2009
I saw this piece from WBUR, one of Boston's NPR affiliates, and thought I would post it as a kind of tribute to all the older athletic women in my life with whom I have had the privilege and pleasure of cycling, and playing softball, tennis, and golf with and as well as just hangin' with...

Harassment cases roundup

Posted on December 05, 2009
Here is a roundup of recent judicial decisions in Title IX harassment cases:Dominican College in Blauvelt, New York, was unsuccessful in its motion to dismiss a claim alleging that the College's response to charges that one of its students had raped another student, the plaintiff's daughter, who later committed suicide, violated Title IX...

Mesa Coach Wins Damages in Retaliation Case

Posted on December 04, 2009
A jury in San Diego Superior Court found that Mesa Community College retaliated against former basketball coach when it terminated her position for speaking out against inequities in women's athletics, in violation of Title IX. Lorri Sulpizio's complaints had triggered an investigation by the Office for Civil Rights, which lead to an agreement by the college to remedy disparities in support and resources between men's and women's teams...

ESPN Profiles Case of Pregnancy Discrimination in High School Sports

Posted on December 03, 2009
Via Womenstake (among other blogs) I learned that ESPN recently profiled a case of discrimination against a pregnant high school athlete in an episode of Outside the Lines. Mackenzie McCollum was a star setter on her high school volleyball team in Fort Worth, Texas, until...

Deford addresses cheerleading

Posted on December 02, 2009
When someone I rarely see says, when I sit down for a catching-up chat, "I heard something about Title IX recently," and ponders where he heard it, it means that I probably should have posted about Frank Deford's commentary last week on Morning Edition...

Fundraising at Issue in Complaint Against Oregon School District

Posted on December 01, 2009
The Office for Civil Rights is currently investigating an anonymous complaint against the Lebanon (Oregon) Community School District for sex discrimination in its athletics program. District officials told the local press that the complaint addresses the fact that the softball team does not have an all-weather batting facility like the baseball team, and that the boys' baseball team, but not the softball team, travels to Arizona for spring break...

Is collegiate football dying?

Posted on December 01, 2009
Well if you listen to the commentary that has come with the announcement that Northeastern University has cut its football program you would think we were back in the early 1900s when football almost died a quick death due to concerns over morality and mortality...

PA Whistleblower Profiled in NY Times

Posted on November 30, 2009
Yesterday's New York Times contained a profile of Robert Landau, a Pennsylvania man who has been filing Title IX complaints -- more than 30 -- against local school districts since his own daughter was a student athlete in 1989. We wrote about Landau last year, when it was revealed that he was the anonymous complainant who had instigated an Office for Civil Rights investigation of Central Bucks School District for discriminating against girls' teams in areas of publicity, scheduling, and equipment...

Not a lot of movement in Ohio

Posted on November 28, 2009
Here's an update on the softball field situation at Chillicothe High School in Ohio. I blogged about the letter sent by the ACLU on behalf of a parent to the school district which complained about the sub par conditions of the practice and playing fields of the CHS softball team...

Softball coach takes on football

Posted on November 16, 2009
Usually when we hear about a complaint filed by or on behalf of softball players, said complaint usually compares the treatment softball receives or the facilities it has access to as compared to baseball. But a recent complaint, initially filed anonymously and then admitted to by the softball coach at Theodore High School in Mobile County Alabama, compares the treatment the team get to that of the football team...

DII field hockey team in NC cut

Posted on November 13, 2009
It's never good news when I pull out my calculator and head to the Department of Education's Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool. And this time it's bad news for Catawba College in North Carolina. According to a very brief piece in USA Today, the school has cut women's field hockey--effective immediately...

Illinois high school lawsuit ongoing

Posted on November 12, 2009
In Canton, IL a lawsuit brought by two parents alleging inequities between the girls' sports program and the boys' program remains unsettled. Mediation had been ongoing but the school board rejected this week the proposed settlement and thus litigation remains pending with a trial scheduled for May 2010...

Title IX dads

Posted on November 11, 2009
In what is being called a love letter to Title IX, writer, editor and father Mark Schmitt penned his tribute to Title IX, his daughter, Little League and social change last week in a very nice column about the legislation in his magazine The American Prospect...

Lapchick weighs in on new NCAA president

Posted on November 10, 2009
In a recent issue of Sport Business Journal (which, unfortunately, is only available to subscribers), Dr. Richard Lapchick, who is notable for his many reports on gender and racial diversity in sport and the experiences of collegiate student athletes, has an editorial about the passing of NCAA president Myles Brand and who should take the reins...

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