Title IX: Law ensured balanced cutbacks during pandemic
Title IX is always on Candice Storey Lee’s mind and the Vanderbilt athletics director believes that’s how it should be for any administrator running college programs.
“I would hope that’s part of our DNA and that it is seen in how we make decisions on a dayto-day basis,” Lee said.
By most accounts, it is. It certainly was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At times, Title IX was at the forefront of decisions by ADS. When schools examined which programs might be cut to save money as the spread of the virus shut down the sports world in 2020, the law prohibiting sex-based discrimination was a major factor.
It was an example of how Title IX ensures equity between men and women in education and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal funds, such as student financial aid.
“The law is meant to shape decision-making and behavior,
and it has done that,” Virginia athletics director Carla Williams said. “I think it will continue to do that.”
Compliance can be measured in multiple ways, including whether the overall program’s gender breakdown is proportionate to that of the general student body. The goal is ensuring men and women have equitable
participation opportunities as well as access to scholarships.
But the shutdown created financial pressures, particularly for Division I programs with lost revenue from the canceled NCAA men’s basketball tournament and uncertainty about whether football — which largely funds Olympic and lower-profile sports programs — would go forward at all.
Schools that chose cuts had to consider Title IX compliance numbers for remaining programs. And ultimately, cuts hit more men’s programs (47) than women’s (22) in Division I, according to data from The Associated Press and wrestling site Mat Talk Almanac.
“I imagine it would have made it much harder for anyone to actually consider the cutting of women’s sports,” South Florida athletics director Michael Kelly said. “Unless, if they already had a preponderance or excess of women’s sports and women’s student-athletes and women’s student experience, then maybe they did. But I’m not aware of too many that are in that situation.”
East Carolina athletics director Jon Gilbert faced that difficult decision.
The Pirates, an American Athletic Conference member, announced cuts to four programs —men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s tennis — in May 2020 while citing a $4.9 million budget deficit. The school later announced