Most of US women’s college coaches are white and male
On the 45th anniversary of Title IX, women and people of color remain on the outside in the US when it comes to hiring head coaches in women’s college sports, according to a report by sports institutes.
Title IX is enforced by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) among other statutes such as the Education Amendments of 1972 which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance.
The report found that the coaches hired were predominantly white and male in most of the eight conferences surveyed: The Power 5 conferences — Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and Pac-12 — along with the American Athletic, Big East and Ivy League, according to abcnews.go.com.
The study was done by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport in collaboration with the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport and LGBT Sportsafe.
Title IX was signed into law June 23, 1972. It opened doors for girls and women by banning sex discrimination in all federally funded school programs, including sports.
Seven of the eight conferences polled received a C or D grade for having female head coaches of women’s teams. The Big East, SEC and Big 12 fell below 40 percent. Only the Ivy League (55 percent) had more women than men as head coaches.
The grades were far worse regarding race. Half the conferences (Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Ivy League) received a grade of F. The AAC was the lone league to have an above average grade of B, with 18 percent of its women’s coaches people of color.
Richard Lapchick, whose Diversity and Ethics group also puts out report cards on racial practices of the NFL, NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, college football and college basketball, said: “I’ve never given an F as an overall grade in 25 years and there are four Fs in this particular report for lack of people of color of in head coaching positions for the women’s teams. That’s a damning statement that there could be four Fs in a single report like this.”
According to the report, 27 of the 94 schools had no coaches of color leading their women’s sports. The SEC led all the leagues studied, with seven of its schools having all white coaches leading women’s teams.
“It says people haven’t been paying attention,” Lapchick said, referring to the conference commissioners and athletic directors at the schools.
When it came to gender, overall 57 percent of the coaches were male.