|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Contact: Jenice Robinson or Ranit Schmelzer, 202-588-5180
PUBLIC SUPPORTS TITLE IX, BUT DISCRIMINATION
AGAINST GIRLS AND WOMEN IN ATHLETICS REMAINS WIDESPREAD
NWLC Releases Comprehensive Investigation of Title Complaints,
Public Opinion Survey and Web Site, www.fairplaynow.org
(Washington, D.C.) In recognition of the 35th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark law that mandates equal educational opportunities for male and female students, the National Women’s Law Center today is releasing the outcome of an investigation of Title IX complaints as well as the results of a national poll that shows overwhelming public support for Title IX.
The investigation, Barriers to Fair Play, examines 416 Title IX athletics complaints (provided to NWLC after a Freedom of Information Act request) filed with or resolved by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from Jan. 1, 2002, to Dec. 31, 2006. A comprehensive analysis of these complaints reveals that girls and women still receive fewer opportunities to participate in athletics, and when given the opportunity to be on a team, are often treated worse than their male counterparts. The report was released today by Marcia D. Greenberger, NWLC Co-President, who testified this morning at a House Education and Labor Subcommittee hearing on Title IX.
The investigation of Title IX complaints reveals that there is substantially more work to be done to eradicate sex discrimination in athletics in our nation’s K-12 schools, colleges and universities. But while the findings of the investigation are troubling, there is promise for change. A national survey demonstrates overwhelming support for Title IX enforcement. Not only does the public strongly support the law’s mandate of equal opportunity, it also backs action in cases of unequal treatment. But the public is not familiar with the tools available to hold schools accountable.
“While women have made significant progress in education over the last 35 years, the job is not yet finished and the playing field is far from level,” said Marcia D. Greenberger. “Much remains to be done to ensure that women have truly equal access and opportunities in all areas of education, but nowhere is that more true than in athletics.”
To provide assistance to students and their advocates, the National Women’s Law Center, along with partners from different regions across the country, is unveiling a new website, www.fairplaynow.org, which is designed to enable the public to evaluate and hold their schools accountable for compliance with the law. A companion website, www.titleix.info, provides Title IX success stories and cases that document ongoing challenges. In addition, NWLC is releasing Breaking Down Barriers, a comprehensive, step-by-step legal manual that educates students, teachers and coaches who are subjected to discrimination, as well as their advocates and attorneys, on how to protect their rights under Title IX.
Results of the Investigation of Title IX Complaints
The Nature of the Complaints
Because of Title IX, over the last 35 years, the number of girls who participate in athletics has increased exponentially in K-12 education as well as in colleges and universities. But the Center’s report, Barriers to Fair Play, reveals that discrimination against girls and women in sports remains widespread.
Among the report’s findings:
The nature of the complaints ranged from challenges to discrimination experienced by a single athlete to allegations of systemic violations by schools. A majority, 60 percent, of the complaints filed by female athletes challenged inequitable treatment of existing girls’ or women’s teams, and 30 percent challenged schools’ failure to provide nondiscriminatory participation opportunities for girls and women by establishing a fair number of teams or slots.
In K-12 education, the most common athletics complaint was unequal treatment of female athletes playing at the school. The unequal treatment ranged from inequitable facilities to less favorable game schedules, lesser compensation for girls’ coaches, and lack of school-sponsored transportation to games compared with boys’ teams. Barriers to Fair Play outlines several of the more egregious examples of Title IX violations. One involves a school district in Alabama in which boys’ basketball teams had separate locker rooms, matching home and away uniforms, warm-up uniforms and gym bags. The girls’ teams, by comparison, shared locker rooms with PE and other sports teams, had mismatched uniforms and missed away games because no bus drivers were available.
“Thirty-five years after the enactment of Title IX, women are still too often relegated to the bench when it comes to the facilities, equipment, coaching, publicity and other support services that they receive,” Greenberger said.
At the college level, inequitable facilities were named most frequently in the treatment complaints on behalf of college athletes. The greatest number of complaints challenged treatment violations across the entire sports programs or did not specify a particular sport.
Title IX Enforcement Efforts
In addition to responding to complaints, OCR is responsible for initiating assessments of Title IX compliance by federally funded educational institutions across the country. OCR’s record of initiating such reviews reveals that it did not adequately fulfill this responsibility during the period covered by the Center’s report. In fact, OCR conducted only one compliance review of a school’s athletics program during the five years covered by the review. This represents a harmful and inexcusable abdication of OCR’s enforcement responsibilities.
Between 1995 and 2000, OCR annual reports consistently listed equal opportunity in athletics as a focus of enforcement efforts or provided examples of compliance reviews that addressed athletics. Between 2001 and 2005, however, no OCR annual reports mentioned athletics as a focus for compliance reviews to be conducted, and none cited examples of athletics as evidence of successful reviews that had been conducted.
What the Public Says
A nationally known public opinion research firm, The Mellman Group, conducted a national public opinion survey on Title IX. The random survey polled 1,000 adults. The poll found that Title IX remains extremely an extremely popular law with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Among the poll’s findings:
“Women and girls still face unacceptable and unlawful barriers to athletic opportunity, which continue to contribute to the ‘corrosive and unjustified discrimination against women’ that Title IX was intended to eliminate,” Greenberger said. “We must use this anniversary to recommit ourselves to making the letter and the spirit of the Title IX law a reality across all areas of education.”
Press Materials:
###
