(02-19-2014 05:47 PM)john01992 Wrote: (02-19-2014 05:30 PM)UofLgrad07 Wrote: After asking around, the general sentiment at UofL seems to be that the school is still considering adding a men's team but that nothing is likely for the immediate future. Seems the administration and athletics department wants to get acquainted with the ACC first and that other projects have been deemed more important (student athlete academic center, expanding the Schnellenberger complex, etc). There is also the issue of Title IX and having to add another women's sport to compensate.
does title 9 apply to only scholarships or number of players on a team?
Here is the long answer.
In order to be considered in compliance with Title IX, athletics departments must show that they are achieving parity in the following three areas: (1) participation, (2) treatment in program areas, and (3) athletic financial assistance. Since you asked about scholarship versus player numbers, we'll focus only on areas #1 and #3.
In terms of participation, schools can demonstrate compliance by passing at least one part of the Three-Part Test. This test gives institutions the ability to comply with Title IX by meeting one of the following tests:
- The number of participation opportunities for male and female athletes is substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or
- The institution has a history and continuing practice of expanding participation opportunities responsive to the developing interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex; or
- The institution is fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.
In practice, however, the Three Part Test has almost universally collapsed into a single test, the first. The reason? Colleges and universities administrators tend to be risk averse and most are afraid of the interpretations that courts might give the more subjective second and third tests. As a result, most simply default to the easily defined and more objective "substantial proportionality" test.
Now the DoE has allowed schools to use online surveys to gauge the interests of females on campus (thereby fulfilling the requirements of the third test). The problem here (to my knowledge) is that you have to administer the survey yearly and if suddenly you get a big spike in interest one year, you are at risk of falling out of compliance. There are also no guidelines for when the survey has to be administered or how long students must be given to respond (murky rules are something administrators tend to abhor and avoid). So in practice, pretty much everyone still falls back on the first test.
In terms of athletic financial assistance, Title IX is actually pretty straightforward. In order to be in compliance, schools must provide substantially proportionate scholarship money for its male and female student-athletes. For example, if you have 80 scholarship athletes on a football team, then you need a roughly proportionate number of female scholarships somewhere else to balance them out.
Therefore, you have to consider both scholarships AND participants when considering the effects of adding a sport (unless you want to risk qualifying under the second or third test under the participation metric). So what do Louisville's numbers look like?
Student Body
48.4% male
51.6% female
(I don't have the athlete participation numbers in front of me but they are reasonably close to the student body figures with there being more male participants than female)
Student Athlete Scholarships
151.2 for men
141 for women
The problem with adding men's LAX isn't the scholarship aspect. Men's LAX would only add 12.6 scholarship to the men's side; a figure that could easily be balanced out by adding a sport like women's gymnastics (12 scholarships). The real problem with adding men's LAX is when it comes to participation. Men's LAX typically has a very large roster size (40-45 players) whereas women's gymnastics tends to have a significantly smaller roster (around 20ish). Further complicating things is that UofL already has all the typical Title IX offset sports (wlax, rowing, field hockey). One reason why women's rowing is such a popular addition is because its 50-100 roster spots are very useful for balancing football (85 schollies; 100 rosters).
So the big issue is how to handle the participation aspect. UofL could add two women's sports (e.g. gymnastics and fencing would add enough roster spots to offset lacrosse and could participate in the ACC), they could add one women's sport with an inflated roster (e.g. equestrian), or they could add one women's sport while also trimming a few of the men's rosters.
