Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel and Director of Equal Opportunities in Athletics

Pennsylvania recently joined a handful of other states that require schools to publicly disclose gender equity in sports data every year, which will help communities learn more about how their schools are treating girls and boys in athletics. The Equity in Interscholastic Athletics Disclosure Bill requires Pennsylvania middle and high schools to disclose the numbers of athletic opportunities provided to boys and girls, broken down by race/ethnicity, as well as team expenditures, coaches’ salaries, and other gender equity information. The first reports are due November 2013 and will be available on schools’ websites as well as the state Department of Education’s website.  The law is similar to ones on the books in Georgia and New Mexico.

Schools already collect or have this information but are not required to disclose it publicly, which puts the burden on individuals wanting to know more about a school’s sports program to file an open records request and navigate that process. Data bills like the one enacted by Pennsylvania make it easier for parents and students to access critical information to evaluate whether girls are boys are being treated fairly in their school sports programs (see recent article highlighted by our colleagues at the Women’s Law Project, who were instrumental in getting the bill passed).  At the college level, the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act has been in place since 1994 and has helped identify many problems at colleges and universities across the country. Efforts have been underway for many years to pass a similar federal law that would apply to all secondary schools.

As the old adage goes, you can't solve a problem unless you're able to define it.

We know that girls who play sports reap benefits both on and off the field. But we also know that girls across the country are still not getting equal opportunities to play sports or equal treatment when they do play. To make matters worse, when parents and students try to find out how their schools are allocating valuable athletic opportunities and resources, they are not able to get information.

High schools, like colleges, should be required to make information about their sports programs publicly available. Please ask your Members of Congress to support the High School Athletics Accountability Act, H.R. 458, and the High School Data Transparency Act, S. 1269. These two bills would require high schools to report information, broken down by gender, on sports participation and expenditures. Schools are already collecting this information, but since it is not public, parents and students cannot evaluate their athletics programs to make sure that girls are being treated fairly.