TITLE IX IN SPORTS
Historically women’s sports have been treated worse than men, but because of Title IX things have improved. Title IX is a federal civil rights law created in 1972 in response to the educational inequalities women faced prior to it. The law prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school. This also means if a school operates or sponsors an athletic program, it must provide equal opportunity for all genders. This includes equal benefits such as coaching, facilities, equipment, and a fair distribution of athletic funds.
According to the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education students have the right to participate in intercollegiate, intramural, or club athletics without discrimination based on sex. Before Title IX was implemented there were only 29,972 female collegiate athletes according to SportsandDev.org. As of 2022 there are now 229,060 female collegiate athletes making up almost 44% of collegiate athletes.
Despite Title IX inequality is still shown in college sports. Access to view women’s sporting events has been a big issue and the treatment can sometimes appear to be unfair. Women are supposed to be given the same athletic opportunity as men and vice versa, but sometimes this isn’t the case.
For example, a lawsuit was filed when the University of Iowa cut a bunch of their sports teams, including their swim and dive team for financial reasons in 2021. Sage Ohlensehlen, captain of the team, believed this was a Title IX violation and sued the school because there wasn’t nearly the same number of men and women athletes. The judge forced the school to reinstate their swim team temporarily, and eventually it was permanent. The percent of the school that were women didn’t match the amount of roster spots that should be open on women’s teams compared to men’s student population and roster spots.
Title IX violations were especially prominent and heard about during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to NPR, “The NCAA spends more on male athletes than female ones on average, especially when it comes to the few championship events seen as the organization’s big money makers.”
During the NCAA March Madness tournament in 2021 all players had to stay in a bubble to make sure they didn’t encounter COVID-19. The men’s teams were prioritized during their tournament in Indiana, while the women’s teams faced disparities at their tournament in Texas.
To start the men’s teams were given the more expensive and accurate COVID tests, while the women got the cheaper, less accurate alternative. The women’s teams weight room was a room with just a small rack of weights that didn’t go past 30 pounds, meanwhile the men were given all the proper equipment needed in a weight room. The food and merchandise they received also appeared to be unequal. This didn’t go unnoticed by the public, the NCAA received a ton of criticism about this from viewers, college athletes, and pro athletes.
While some schools still seem to have issues with maintaining equality, it doesn’t appear as if SUNY Cortland has that issue.
We treat every single one of our student athletes just as that, not different because they are a man or a woman. It’s just how we operate at Cortland.
Jaclyn Lawrence
CORTLAND ATHLETIC OFFICE
Equality can’t be maintained without the people who work in athletics department. Jaclyn Lawrence, the Associate Director of Athletics for Events, Marketing and Development at Cortland, creates an environment where everyone receives the same treatment.
“We treat every single one of our student athletes just as that, not different because they are a man or a woman. It’s just how we operate at Cortland.” said Lawrence. “When teams travel on the road, when they are getting meals, when they stay at hotel, the busses, that is all the same. Coaches’ salaries are all based off the same thing, we’re not looking at gender for that type of stuff.”
When it comes to marketing and promoting sporting events on campus to get students to attend student events both the men and women teams receive the same promotions. They get the same Instagram
“I do our marketing on our campus, so I do the same stuff for every team. I get the photographers to the game, I do the same Instagram posts for it, so I don’t necessarily push for one team to go to a certain game,” said Lawrence. “But when I can, for example, if the cheerleaders want to come to the basketball game, that means they are doing both the men’s and women’s games. If you come to our games often, we do have pretty good crowds for women’s games like volleyball and basketball.”
The only thing that appears to be unequal is the amount of fundraising that is done for the teams, but that is outside of the school’s control and not something that could be changed, unless other teams were to donate more.
“Our department we have state funds and funds from student athletic fees that are passed on to our programs, but then we also have our teams’ opportunity to fundraise as well and if you kind of know anything about that, men tend to give more than women just as a society,” said Lawrence. “That’s why men have these golf tournaments, and things they’ll do, and then also you think about how much longer our men’s programs have been around more than women’s. We had our ‘Cortland Challenge Day’ two weeks ago and our football team raised $62,000 because it is one of our oldest programs and the alumni just like to give back.”
The football team at Cortland raised almost 28% of the total athletic donations Cortland received during the annual giving day, raising the most of all the teams. This gives the team greater benefits because of the extra money they acquired, but this isn’t a Title IX issue because it isn’t discrimination based on sex.
SUNY CORTLAND ATHLETES’ THOUGHTS
Gender equality in sports isn’t the case for every school. Emily Morano, a rising senior on the Cortland Women’s Basketball team, transferred schools in fall of 2022, and believes that Cortland does a better job than her old school in maintaining equality.
“Compared to my old school, Kings College, I feel as if Cortland ensures equality more in that sense, especially fan based. The Cortland community supports both teams as well as other coaching staffs/ faculty members always being in attendance,” said Morano. “I think what stands out the most is our universities president, Erik Bitterbaum, almost always being present for many of the sporting events going on around campus.”
A supportive college president can be influential to the students on campus encouraging them to branch out to different sporting events.
Dany Donegan, a graduating senior on the Cortland Women’s Hockey team, has felt that her treatment as a student athlete has been mostly equal at Cortland.
“I do generally feel like we get the same treatment as the men’s team. We have the freedom to set up our practice time as well as they do. We set up our team lift time that works for us,” said Donegan. “Things that are unequal is just the budget but that has to do with our fundraising. The men’s team has a lot of alumni who are big donors for them. Our team doesn’t have that, so our budget for things we want is much less. We work hard through fundraising to make up for a little bit of that.”
Brooke Scheibe, a rising junior on the Cortland Softball team, hasn’t run into anyway inequality since being on the team.
“I believe my team is treated equally when compared to the treatment of the men’s teams,” said Scheibe. “As a female athlete at Cortland I get to compete in beautiful and well-maintained facilities, such as our softball field and weight room.”
Although given equal facilities and practice times, sometimes men’s sports have bigger turnouts and that could be based off the times they are given to play.
“I wouldn’t consider it inequality, but the men’s team usually has a lot more fans at their games. This is likely because they get the better times for their games,” said Donegan. “We usually have games at 3pm and the men’s team plays at 7 which is more accessible for fans and families to be able to come to the game especially on the weekdays.”
CLUBS AND INTRAMURALS
SUNY Cortland currently has 32 club teams, and for each men’s team there is a women’s team. If there is just one team it is typically co-ed. Club sports also adhere to Title IX and can’t discriminate against athletes based on sex.
Jill Palmeri has been the Vice President of Club Softball for the past two years and hasn’t experienced or seen any unequal treatment based on gender.
“As a club sport we are student funded,” said Palmeri. “Each individual team must do their own fundraising. Each club has a president who sets up practice times and priority for inside practices is based on what teams are in season. I’ve never felt that we were treated less than because we were women.”
Cortland also provides many intramural sports provided throughout the school year that are competitive. As for the club sports, there are both men’s and women’s tournaments for the sports offered, and if not, they are co-ed. For example, they even a women’s flag football league that Victoria Kohler, a senior, was thrilled to participate in.
“I was happy when I saw I could play football competitively,” said Kohler. “I was shocked when I saw it because I didn’t think it was something they would have offered since it is a predominately male sport, but I am glad I was able to play.”
HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED
Cortland has come a long way to strive for equality in athletics. Lawrence has been at Cortland since 2008 when she was a student athlete on the Women’s Volleyball team.
“I was a Cortland athlete myself, so I’ve been here since 2008. I can look at it and we have taken strides to make things better,” said Lawrence. “It’s funny, I was looking at our old award ceremony programs, and for a very long time at Cortland we gave away just male athlete of the year and then a female academic award. It’s so crazy that was a thing 40 or 50 years ago.”
Women’s sports are starting to get the recognition they deserve. At a professional level, the Women’s National Team for soccer has been making strides for equal pay. This starts at a college level. Colleges should show their athletes how they should be treated by providing the same facilities, opportunities, and promotions of their sport.
“I do think we have come a long way even in 15 years,” said Lawrence. “I think a lot has to do with just even as a country that we have more exposure to women’s sports on TV, so I think the fanbase has grown and people want to come watch. So, yeah, I’ve seen it equal out in a really good way. And not just our doing, but society as a whole’s doing.”
In 2022 the Women’s College World Series’ final game between Oklahoma and Texas received more views than any men’s college baseball game that year, including the Men’s College World Series championship that featured Ole Miss and Oklahoma.
Caitlin Clark drew viewers to watch her during the women’s tournament during March Madness this year. She became a player to watch, and her team’s Final Four game drew 5.5 million viewers, which was up 72% compared to last year’s Final Four according to Sports Media Watch.
Overall, women’s sports are heading in the right direction. Viewership is up, and more people are aware of and showing up to women’s sporting events. Title IX has helped shape women’s sports in the last 50 years.