Softball Fields – The Canary in the Mine

by Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel
National Women’s Law Center

As Title IX Blog pointed out the other day, a complaint against the West Perry School District in Pennsylvania that the girls’ softball field is inferior to the boys’ baseball field is unfortunately nothing new. It is but one obvious manifestation of the second-class treatment that girls and women today still receive in high school and college athletics programs. 

A report we released last June on the 35th anniversary of Title IX shows just how far we still have to go to fulfill the law’s promise. The report analyzes the athletics complaints filed with, and compliance reviews conducted by, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education (OCR) over the five year period between 2001 and 2006. During that period, 416 athletics complaints were filed with OCR, over 90 percent of which claimed discrimination against females. About 30 percent of the allegations made on behalf of girls challenged schools’ failure to provide enough opportunities for girls and women to play sports, and about 60 percent challenged inequitable treatment of girls’ and women’s teams.

Interestingly, softball was the sport most frequently cited in complaints, which often identified disparities between the girls’ softball and boys’ baseball fields. Now I don’t think that schools have anything against girls’ softball in particular, but rather that softball fields are an easily visible indicator of a school’s commitment to complying with Title IX in the athletics arena. Baseball and softball fields contain certain amenities—such as such as backstops, dugouts and fencing—that are open to public view and easy to compare. In fact, a softball umpire’s concerns about the poor state of girls’ softball fields is what prompted us to investigate further and negotiate a comprehensive, county-wide agreement with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) in Maryland. This agreement goes beyond softball, however, and requires PGCPS to treat girls fairly not only with respect to facilities like softball fields, but also in terms of opportunities to play, coaching, and publicity, among other things. 

So my advice is to keep looking at softball fields but also remember to look more broadly at schools’ sports programs to make sure that they are being fair. Here is a tool that explains what your school is required to do and provides a checklist that you can use to evaluate whether they are doing it. We also include some suggestions for what you can do if you discover problems, including sharing your story with us. We may be able to help you advocate for equity at your school. In Title IX’s 36th year, it’s about time schools measured up.