Megan Hull
mhull@mail.idt.net
>To: abigails-l@majordomo.netcom.com
>From: owner-abigails-l@netcom.com
>Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 22:15:00 -0500
>Subject: AB: Brown U Title IX decision We won won!!!!
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>**list-admin ABIGAILS-L: forwarded with permission.
>
>We won one!!!!
>
>Here's the column i wrote for background!
>
>By RITA HENLEY JENSEN
>(Distributed by New York Times Special Features)
>
>
>Cheer, applaud, holler and yell ...
>
>... when Jackie Joyner-Kersee powers her way through the long jump and
>heptathlon events.
>
>... when Atlanta's hometown hero Gwen Torrence sprints toward
>a possible triple gold.
>
>... when Janet Evans slices through the water to pursue her
>gold medals for the third time around.
>
>... and when Sheryl Swoopes and her teammates live up to
>their names and taste victory.
>
>Twenty-four years ago our nation enacted Title IX of the 1972
>Amendments to the Education Act, barring sex discrimination in
>educational programs. It has paved the way for American female
>athletes and sparked a new level of excellence in women's sports
>around the world.
>
>The result?
>
>A record-setting total of about 3,700 women from here and
>abroad will compete in the '96 Olympic Games.
>
>Yet only 10 percent of U.S. colleges now fully comply with
>Title IX. Indeed, two lawsuits are pending which attempt to
>cripple it.
>
>Since the statute was passed, schools have scrambled to create
>new women's teams, hire coaches, recruit top performers and pay
>for equipment, locker rooms and plane fare to competitive events.
>But many schools are still reluctant to offer opportunities to
>women comparable to those for the ``revenue-producing'' sports of
>football and men's basketball.
>
>Parenthetically, the Women's Sports Institute has published
>``Facts and Fallacies,'' a fact sheet about Title IX, revealing
>that 61 percent of top-ranked college basketball teams run in the
>red and college football actually produces more than $1.6 million
>in annual deficits.
>
>Title IX doesn't require schools to spend dollar for dollar on
>each sex _ or, for instance, to support women's varsity football
>_ but instead asks that women be given a chance to play on teams
>``substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.''
>
>If a school can't prove it does so, it can still pass the
>court's sex-bias test by demonstrating that it has a history of
>expanding women's sports teams or ``effectively accommodating''
>female students' interests.
>
>But many schools flunk even such loose standards.
>
>In 1992 at Brown University _ an Ivy League bastion of
>liberalism _ 10 female athletes sued after officials decided to
>demote the gymnastic and volleyball teams from varsity _ funded by
>the school _ to club status _ with no institutional financial
>support.
>
>In 1994 at Louisiana State University _ the Baton Rouge
>academy with a championship football team _ five women sued after
>the administration refused to promote the soccer and slow-pitch
>softball teams from club to varsity level.
>
>Of course, a withdrawal of institutional financial support can
>mean no scholarships, practice restricted to late-evening hours,
>sub-competition-level coaching and footing the bill for one's own
>travel, equipment and hotels. If nothing else it's a big
>deterrent to students with financial need.
>
>Each case is now being closely watched by those in college
>sports, and if the athletes prevail, younger women and girls
>across the country are likely to benefit.
>
>So while the Olympics roll, keep in mind the competition being
>fought in the courts by Brown's eight former gymnasts _ Jennifer
>Cloud, Amy Cohen, Melissa Kuroda, Karen MacDonald, Eileen Rocchio,
>Darcy Shearer, Jennifer Shu and Lisa Stern _ and two volleyball
>players _ Jody Budge and Megan Hall. As well as Louisiana's former
>soccer players Tammy Clark, Lisa Ollar and Beth Pederson and
>slow-pitch softball twins Cindy and Karla Pineda.
>
>The Brown case went to trial last year. After hearing the
>evidence, Federal Judge Raymond J. Pettine agreed with the women
>and ordered Brown to remodel its sports program. The school
>submitted a plan, but the judge rejected it and supported a plan
>offered by the female athletes. The university appealed.
>
>``I just can't understand why (the school) didn't settle,''
>says gymnast Cohen _ who, like all the other women, has graduated
>by now.
>
>She has reason to wonder. The majority of discrimination suits
>do settle. To date, women athletes have won the Title IX cases
>that have gone to trial.
>
>Brown's stubbornness may have to do with its lawyer, Walter B.
>Connolly Jr. _ the Detroit defense specialist who currently also
>represents Mitsubishi, the Japanese-based automaker that has
>refused to settle highly publicized sexual-harassment cases
>involving more than 300 female employees who work at its Normal,
>Illinois plant.
>
>Connolly argues that federal regulations under Title IX
>require quota systems and are therefore illegal. He also argues
>that women aren't as interested in sports as men are, so schools
>don't have to provide as many opportunities.
>
>Connolly is unfazed by the fact that women have won all the
>other cases and fights on.
>
>``The fallacy of the approach all these courts have taken is
>that they require schools to give preferential treatment to
>women's athletic programs,'' Connolly argues. But he isn't a Rush
>Limbaugh-type anti-quota freak: ``I am not that insensitive.''
>
>The Louisiana team faces a vastly different challenge. Its
>world-class track and field department has produced eight women
>who are competing in this year's Olympic preliminary trials.
>LSU-trained female athletes _ some of whom have graduated and
>returned to their homelands _ are on Olympic teams for the United
>States, Austria, the Bahamas, Canada, Holland and Jamaica.
>
>What could be wrong?
>
>Lots, as it turns out. Track and field are the exceptions, not
>the rule at LSU. Federal Judge Rebecca F. Doherty ruled in January
>that the school's athletic program was ``archaic'' and
>``ignorant'' and ordered it to come up with a plan within 20 days
>to comply with the federal law.
>
>But the school motioned to dismiss the whole case _ something
>Lynn Rambo, one of the attorneys for the women, says is possible
>even at this stage of the game.
>
>The university is arguing that because the U.S. Constitution
>gives states broad immunity from being sued, the women have no
>right to even bring a case.
>
>But women students must have the right to challenge their
>schools, says lawyer Deborah Brake, a leading expert on Title IX,
>at the National Women's Law Center.
>
>If LSU succeeds, only the U.S. Justice Department would have
>the authority to use the courts to compel schools to comply, not
>the women who claim to be discriminated against.
>
>``There is blatant sex discrimination throughout the world of
>intercollegiate sports in the areas these two cases demonstrate:
>treatment and opportunities,'' Brake says.
>
>She is confident the women athletes will win the Brown and LSU
>cases and looks forward to carrying the battle on to what she
>describes as the new frontier.
>
>Brake has just settled four cases in favor of women in
>Nebraska and is beginning two in Oklahoma on behalf of high school
>girls who just want to have a chance to play their sport.
>
>c.1996 Rita Henley Jensen
>
>---------------------
>Forwarded message:
> To: SPORTSOC @ VM.TEMPLE.EDU
> cc:
> Subject: Brown Decision on Academe Today
>
>
> To the members of SPORTSOC:
>
> I thought some of you might be interested in this information.
> Please feel free to redistribute this notice to other appropriate
> discussion lists.
>
> Thanks,
> -Jeff Young
> Assistant Editor, Academe Today/
> The Chronicle of Higher Education
>
> -----------------------------
>
> A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that Brown University
> had discriminated against its female athletes in violation of
> Title IX, a law requiring gender equity in colleges that get
> federal dollars. The 110-page decision, which affirmed a lower
> court's ruling, was a huge victory for advocates of women in
> intercollegiate athletics -- and a potentially huge blow to men's
> sports, such as wrestling, that have suffered cuts as colleges
> have attempted to comply with Title IX.
>
> Academe Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education's daily news
> service on the Internet, has the full text of the appeals court's
> ruling -- both the majority opinion and the dissent -- as well as
> a detailed story that analyzes its meaning and potential impact.
>
> Subscribers to this list are welcome to read both the story and
> the court decision -- and to explore Academe Today's many other
> resources -- with a FREE password for the next few days.
>
> Simply point your World-Wide Web browser at http://chronicle.com,
> click on any headline, and, after you are asked for your user
> name and password, type "academe" as your user name and "today"
> as your password (do not type the quotation marks).
>
>Fwd: Brown Decision on Academe Today