Tag Archives: Title IX Tuesday

Title IX meets COVID-19

What do Title IX and COVID-19 have in common? A lawsuit!

             In December 2020, the University of Iowa announced it would cut its men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and men’s gymnastics programs starting with the next school year, claiming the hardship of the virus. The women were devastated.

            “When Iowa cut the swim and dive team, that was the worst moment of my life,” said Sage Ohlensehlen, the women’s swim team captain.*

            Team member Alexa Puccini agreed. She recalls the meeting at which the women heard the news.

            “The coaches were lined up against the wall. The athletes, socially distanced, sat in chairs. Athletic director Gary Barta delivered the stunning news and left,” she said.

            “It was very, very emotional. I just couldn’t believe it,” Alexa said. “It was such an awful experience.”**

A widening gap

            Something about the cuts didn’t sound right to the women. This was a Title IX issue, not a Covid issue, they decided. Sage, Alexa and two other swimmers brought a Title IX lawsuit.

            In the lawsuit, the women charged that UI didn’t have enough athletic opportunities for women even before Covid, and cutting their team created an even greater disparity. Women make up 53.56 percent of the student body, the lawsuit stated, but in the pre-Covid 2018-19 academic year only 50.77 percent of athletic opportunities were for women.

            In the 2018-19 year, the lawsuit continued, the university committed $6.7 million to men’s athletic programs and  $6.4 million to women’s athletic programs. That’s a ratio of 51 percent to 49 percent in favor of the men. Close but no cigar!

            The lawsuit goes on to say that the gap in the number of male to female athletes stood at 47 athletes in the 2018-19 school year, a gap that grew to 92 athletes for the 2019-20 school year, and, with the cuts, an expected gap of 141 athletes.

            Further, the women charged, the university failed to meet any of the criteria for Title IX compliance, including financial assistance, equipment and supplies, tutoring, locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities, housing and dining and recruitment.

Gains and losses

            For its part, the university said the cuts were necessary to compensate for the $75 million drop in revenue caused by lost ticket sales and other revenue because of COVID-19.

            “In 2019, the Office for Civil Rights closed its investigation with no findings of any violation in the thirteen categories of Title IX. The university remains committed to staying in compliance with Title IX.

            “In fact, impact on gender equity and Title IX compliance was one of the factors used to determine which sports to eliminate due to the fiscal financial crisis created by COVID-19,” the university said.***

The damage is done

            Even so, the University of Iowa eventually settled the lawsuit. In February 2021, it reinstated the women’s swim and dive team and created a women’s wrestling program.

            But because of the uncertainty of whether they’d be able to swim, many of the women had already made plans to transfer to other universities. Alexa Puccini, for example, is finishing her collegiate career at the University of Arizona. The lawsuit came in Sage Ohlensehl’s senior year, so she reaped no benefit from the decision, but she is currently studying law at Southern Methodist University Law School.

            “The lawsuit literally led to me moving fourteen hours away because I wanted to be someplace where I wasn’t known as the girl who sued Iowa,” she said. “I lost a lot of friends, and I had relatives say rude things to me.”†

             Her senior year was heartbreaking, she said, but she’s certain she and her teammates made a difference for other women.

            “Because of our efforts , 70 MORE WOMEN will have the opportunity to compete as a division one athlete at the University of Iowa (35 swimmers/divers and 35 wrestlers). This result makes the hell that I’ve been through worth it,” Sage said on social media.

            “I’m so happy that Iowa is taking these steps for equality,” she said,†† “and I’m hoping that this case will set a precedent for all other schools.”

                                                            _____________________

* Chloe Peterson, “Ohlensehlen, UI reach settlement in Title IX lawsuit,” The Daily Iowan (September 23, 2021).

** Erica Hunzinger, “Hawkeye swimmers wondered if Title IX suit was ‘going to work’,” AP (June 15, 2022).

*** Daniel Perreault, “Judge temporarily stops University of Iowa from cutting Women’s Swimming and Diving,” KWWL (December 3, 2020).

† “Ohlensehlen, UI reach settlement” and “Judge temporarily stops.”

†† Ohlensehlen, UI reach settlement.”

PHOTO: Sage Ohlensehlen (left) with unidentified teammate. I’m working on it!

A walk-on wonder

It’s almost December, that dreary time between the World Series and spring training, and I’m so happy to have a baseball story for you!

            Last week, Olivia Pichardo made college baseball history. The 18-year-old freshman at Brown University became the first female athlete in NCAA Division 1 history to be named to a varsity baseball roster.

            Here’s how she describes finding out that she’d made the team.

            “It was definitely a surreal moment for me because it’s something that I’ve wanted since eighth grade,” she said. “It’s kind of crazy to know that I’m living out my dream right now and my ideal college experience that I’ve always wanted.”*

Softball? Nope!

            Olivia grew up in Queens, New York, and has been playing baseball since she was 5 years old. Her father, Max, had played street and sandlot ball in the Dominican Republic, and was equally in love with the game. He teamed up with his daughter to make her goal a reality.

            She played varsity ball for Garden School in Queens and travel baseball on Long Island. She played club ball for the New York Crush and Next Level Baseball and made the Olympic Women’s National Baseball Team. She went on to intern in the New York Mets’ amateur scouting department.

            Over the years, coaches and mentors pressured her to play softball, where she would undoubtedly succeed and have a secure athletic future. But Olivia pushed back.

            “Each year, I would be told that the game I love would leave me behind,” Olivia said. “I just kept playing and working harder.”**

            Olivia was determined to play baseball, even if it wasn’t at the D1 level. She had several offers to play college ball, but Olivia chose Brown, having no guarantee of playing. She participated in a walk-on tryout followed by an intense assessment process. Head coach Grant Achilles was impressed with her athleticism, versatility and strength as a middle infielder, outfielder and pitcher.

            “Olivia put together the most complete walk-on tryout I have seen from a player since becoming a head coach,” said Achilles.***                   

Team spirit

            Olivia’s teammates have been equally as supportive. When Achilles introduced her to the team, they gave her a round of applause.

            “I’m getting an overwhelming amount of support and it definitely feels very good to feel supported like this,” she said.†

            Baseball For All, an organization that advocates for girls and women in baseball, keeps a list of colleges and universities that consider talented players, regardless of gender. Eight women, including Olivia, are on varsity college baseball rosters for the spring of 2023. That makes Olivia happy.

            “I’m just really glad that we’re having more and more female baseball players at the collegiate level. No matter what division, it’s just really good to see this progression,” she said.†† “It’s paving the way for other girls in the next generation to also have these goals that they want to achieve and dream big and know that they can do it.”

                                                _________________

* “At Brown, Olivia Pichardo makes history as first woman on an NCAA Division I varsity baseball team,” Brown University press release (November 21, 2022). Read about other female baseball firsts here.

** https://oliviabaseball.com

*** “At Brown.”

† Julian McWilliams, “A lofty plan by a dad and his daughter 14 years ago produced Brown’s Olivia Pichardo, the first woman on a Division 1 baseball roster,” The Boston Globe (November 22, 2022).

†† “A lofty plan.”

Why do we put up with it?

For the last few weeks, I’ve been sharing stories of women whose actions expanded Title IX to include sexual harassment and violence as a violation of the law. It got me thinking…

Why don’t we recognize sexual harassment when it happens to us? Why doesn’t it make us angry? Why don’t we all speak up?

I agree with the Yale student who said that sexual harassment is something that we all just expect. Something women just have to deal with. Maybe laugh about it with your girlfriends, roll your eyes, but otherwise let it go. It’s just the way it is.

But it isn’t the way it should be.

Safe in high school…

I got to thinking about my own experiences. In 1972, the year Title IX was enacted, I was entering high school. I knew nothing of the new law. I wasn’t an athletic girl; I was a geeky girl who played the flute and got straight As.

In my school, musical kids and top students were equally split between boys and girls as far as I  could see, no discrimination. If you were the best instrumentalist, you were awarded first chair. If you got the best grades, you were ranked at the top of your class.

I spent my free class periods in the quadrangle of private practice rooms in the music wing. I was perfectly safe there. I had two male band and orchestra teachers. Mr. Thrall was a fatherly gentleman whom we all loved. The other music teacher was a younger man who was also perfectly proper in his dealings with students. I rode in a car with him across New York State to the Catskills and back for all-state band, no problem.

Title IX didn’t seem to apply to me. At least for three years.

… Until…

In my senior year, I was in an accelerated English program that allowed me to choose independent study. I was assigned to a male teacher who was familiar to me from drama club. He was known — known! and we put up with it! — to be handsy and overly familiar with female students.

I don’t remember what path of study I chose, but I remember that he chose one session. He assigned me to read an e.e. cummings poem.

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.

Let me just tell you here that I was a very naive girl. I was brought up in a fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren household. It was an insular world that didn’t let in anything from the outside world, especially anything related to sex.

I think that explains my confusion when the teacher asked me what I thought about the poem. What did I think about the last lines?

and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new.

I don’t remember what I said. Nothing? He went on — maybe that session, maybe another — to ask me about what I and my boyfriend of two years got up to together. Had we… you know… surely by now…

Throughout the year, he would whisper things in my ear. “I’m going to marry you some day,” he’d say. Was that grooming? At the senior prom, he asked me to dance — he, a chaperone — but after graduation, thankfully, that was the end of it. I guess he just went on to the next unsuspecting girl.*

I consider myself fortunate that nothing physical ever happened. It certainly could have. I’ve often wondered whether this teacher got through his career unscathed. Whether he ever faced any consequences for his actions. Whether any girl was brave enough to stand up to him.

Because of this experience, I understand the deep desire to let something invasive go unchallenged. I respect women who pursue recourse, no matter their feelings of humiliation and the cost to themselves of going public. They challenged what we all thought we had to endure — we all just thought it was the way things were. Yet because of the courage of women like these, it’s not the way things have to be.

                                                _________________________

* Unfortunately, that wasn’t my last experience with harassment. There was that Thomson newspaper executive who took me to dinner “to discuss my career advancement.” It wasn’t my career he had an interest in. 

PHOTO: e.e. cummings