Tag Archives: @TitleIX50

Vaulting to Title IX success

Gymnastics was one sport available for women long before Title IX. But that doesn’t mean it was free from discrimination. In fact, gymnasts at Brown University brought a precedent-setting lawsuit in 1992, two decades after Title IX became law.

            In 1991, Brown University cut women’s varsity gymnastics, along with three other teams. It wasn’t that the program was failing; just the year before, the team had won Brown’s first-ever Ivy League title for gymnastics.

            Amy Cohen, the incoming captain of the team, was devastated.

            “We begged for another solution; we suggested the athletics director ask all coaches to trim 5 percent from their budgets to spare these four teams,” she says. “He told us in no uncertain terms that he had made the decision and that his decision was final.”*

Who got rid of whom?

            The possibility remained of keeping the team at a club level, and the women got to work fundraising. Over the summer, they raised enough money — from the community, not the university! — to continue. In the fall, Amy arrived on campus proud of saving the team and expecting the athletic director to congratulate the women.

            Well, that didn’t happen.

            “He locked us out of our locker room and informed us that we could not see the athletic trainers, use the varsity weight room or hold home meets on weekends,” she said. “At one point, he even muttered, ‘I thought I got rid of you.’”**

            The university had cut the teams — men’s water polo and golf, and women’s gymnastics and volleyball — in response to a mandate to trim $1.6 million from its budget. It claimed it was acting fairly by cutting two women’s and two men’s teams.

            Amy saw it differently — women were already underrepresented in sports at Brown, so the cuts disproportionately affected them.  At the time, women comprised 53.8 percent of the 5,600 enrolled students, yet they represented just 38 percent of the 900 varsity athletes.

A civil rights warrior

            In 1992, Amy became the lead plaintiff in a Title IX lawsuit against the university. The case wound its way through the courts, handing the women victory after victory. In 1997, they finally won in district court, but Brown didn’t give up. It appealed to the Supreme Court.

            “The ruling leaves the university no choice but to set aside up to 51 percent of its varsity opportunities for qualified women because 51 percent of its students were women,” said a spokeswoman for the university. “That stark numerical quota was required without regard to the fact that women do not represent 51 percent of all interested athletes.”***

            This well-worn argument is sort of a chicken-and-the-egg line of thinking. Women aren’t as interested in sports as men are, one side says. Women would be just as interested in sports if they had as much opportunity as men, the other side says.

            When the women won their case in 1997, Amy was no longer a student. Then a second-grade teacher, Amy said her students likened her to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

            “I think they understand Title IX better than most of the nation’s athletic directors,” she said.****

Fast forward to today

            Ultimately, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the ruling stood. The university set in motion a plan to increase minimum team sizes for women’s sports, cap team sizes for men’s sports, restore the four cut teams, and add a women’s lightweight crew team.

            That wasn’t the end of the story, though. In May 2020, Brown cut several women’s teams even though male athletes already had a larger share of the school’s athletic resources. The women went back to court and emerged with a settlement requiring the university to reinstate two of the teams and extend enforcement of the decree for several more years.

            For Amy, this decades-long battle for equality became bigger than just one team.

            “We realized that this case was about much more than just getting our gymnastics team back. We became Title IX warriors,” she said. “Over the past 50 years, progress has been made towards equality and equity in sports but, I am sad to say, we still have a long way to go. I hope that in my lifetime I will see true equity and equality.”*****

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* “Class Action Hall of Fame, Class of 2022: Title IX Champions for Equality in Women’s Sports,” Impact Fund (February 2022). Amy and her teammates were honored by this social justice organization for their activism. https://www.impactfund.org/social-justice-blog/cahof22

** “Class Action,” Impact Fund.

*** “Women gain a victory in access to athletics,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 22, 1997), p. 5.

**** Susan Ware. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc., 2007), p. 85.

***** “Class Action,” Impact Fund.

PHOTO: Brown University women’s 1990 gymnastics team. Amy Cohen is in front, above the “O” in the sign. Source: National Museum of American History.

Goal!

This week, after a lengthy battle that stretched out over years, the U.S. women’s soccer team finally won its fight for equal pay.

            Under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, World Cup prize money will be pooled between the men’s and women’s teams and split equally among all players. In addition, the teams will also share equally the money U.S. Soccer makes commercially and at events. The agreement is in force until 2028.*

            “There were days that I didn’t think we were going to get it across the line. But we are here, and I’m just so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished and what it is going to mean, not only for the game here in the U.S. but globally,” said U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) president Cindy Parlow Cone.**

How it all started

            So, here’s the history behind the victory. In 2019, 28 members of the U.S. Women’s National Team sued their boss, the USSF. In taking legal action, the women were following in the footsteps of female employees everywhere who have to fight for equal treatment in the workplace.

            The players chose March 8 — International Women’s Day — to file a lawsuit claiming gender discrimination. Their suit included examples of unequal pay, inferior working conditions and inadequate investment in their game.

            According to the lawsuit, if the men’s and women’s teams won all of the 20 non-tournament games they played, female players would earn $99,000, or $4,950 per game, while male players would earn $263,320, or $13,166 per game. (And yet, the men’s national team hasn’t placed in the World Cup since 1930, when they finished third).

            Another way to visualize the inequity: The men’s 2018 World Cup winner, France, took home $38 million, while the next year, the U.S. women’s team took home only $4 million for its win. In fact, the women’s team has dominated the soccer world, winning four FIFA Women’s World Cup titles since the competition’s founding in 1991.

            After their FIFA win in 2015, the women’s team became the first women’s sports team to be honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City. That team included Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Shannon Boxx and Hope Solo, among other players who are household names today.

            Yet that team filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the filing, the women pointed out (among other things) that for making the World Cup roster, women received a bonus of $30,000, while the men got $68,750.

The play’s the thing

            Of course, the players would rather just focus on their game, but they felt they had no choice but to force USSF’s hand. Historically, the issue of pay inequity is an added burden women have had to carry.

            “From age 14 or 15, these guys are not thinking about, nor do they have to think about, anything other than being an amazing soccer player. That’s their job; that’s their sole focus,” said Rapinoe. “I have to do everything I have to do on the field. Then I have to do everything else to prove to you that that’s enough.”***

            Inequities have existed from the very beginning of women’s soccer, but everything came to a head in the run-up to the 1996 Olympics. That year, the USSF planned to award female players bonuses only if they won gold medals, while male players would get bonuses for every gold, silver or bronze finish.

            “We cannot reward mediocrity,” huffed USSF Executive Director Hank Steinbrecher.****

Lockout (read: boycott)

            In protest, nine members of the 1996 women’s team — led by Julie Foudy, Michelle Akers and Carla Overbeck — boycotted the Olympic training camp and were subsequently locked out. In the end, they forced the organization to offer equal bonuses. And the women took gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

             “The stance is a constant: ‘Look, you guys are lucky to play. You guys should be grateful to play,’” said Akers, who retired in 2000.*****

            So, there we are, the old, old story. Men have a right to play, women need to fight for it. And as you can see, fight they do!

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* I’m in the middle of telling journalist, sportscaster and Medill professor Melissa Isaacson’s story, but just had to break in with this news! We’ll pick up Melissa’s story next week on #TitleIXTuesday.

** Jeff Carlisle, “USWNT, USMNT get equal split of World Cup bonuses in new CBAs,” ESPN (May 18, 2022).

*** Liz Clark, “Double-earners: The U.S. women’s soccer team is fighting for greater equity while playing for a fourth World Cup title,” The Washington Post (June 11, 2019).

**** Lindsay Parks Pieper and Tate Royer, “The biggest fight facing the U.S. women’s soccer team isn’t on the field,” The Washington Post (June 14, 2019).

***** Anne M. Peterson, “History repeats: US women’s soccer team still in wage fight,” AP New (April 17, 2016).