From Mona’s desk
Still? After all these years?
Are you like I am, tired of every time something happens, someone calls “Discrimination!” There are unquestionably times when discrimination of one sort or another is behind something awful. But sometimes it’s not discrimination. Sometimes we’re just rude, oblivious, not thinking or just plain stupid.
It’s easy to get tired of it all.
Then I saw the photos of the weight rooms at the NCAA tournaments - the photo of the fully equipped, spacious weight room at the men’s tournament and the photo of the set of dumbbells and stack of yoga mats at the women’s tournament. And I understood things just a little bit more.
Now I’m tired and angry.
Tuesday, NCAA president Mark Emmert made comments, according to usatoday.com, that the area for the women was never intended to be a weight room, but rather an exercise area to be used before the women took to the court. (Note that I use the word “women” here. The original quote on usatoday.com, has Emmert saying “kids.”) Chris Bumbaca with USA Today says the comments contradict the original story from the NCAA that said the area was suppose to be a weight room.
Thanks to the attention brought to the situation by Sedona Prince of the University of Oregon and others, the women now have an impressive weight room.
When I played high school basketball, it was on the tail of Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in a school or education program that receives federal money. I understood it meant if there was a high school boys sport, there was suppose to be offered, at the same time, a high school girls sport. Hence, girls basketball came to Callaway High School in the 70s and I reaped the benefits, playing roundball and loving it, even though I knew things weren’t quite equal (when the new high school was built, the boys got a new locker room; the girls got the old boys locker room).
I thank Sedona Prince and the others for speaking up. They stood up for themselves and all women. The situation may have been an oversight, it may have been just plain stupid, but it should have never happened, not now and not at that level. It we all are a little less tired and think a little bit more, it doesn’t have to happen again.