The article below was in the Boston Globe (http://boston.com/globe/)
yesterday and is also on ME-Hockey.
I think it is a good idea to add this little push, which is a complaint to
the Civil Rights Office and not a law suit. I am sure they just picked 25
schools from across our fine land. For example, from what I have seen and
heard of UNH's women's hockey program, they are doing extremely well on
the road to equity.
We have had 25 years of Title IX. There has been a fair amount of
progess, but also much dragging of the feet. I am hopeful that this might
help a few schools who are thinking about making women's ice hockey a full
varsity program go for it.
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Sports scholarship bias alleged
Women shortchanged by colleges, group says in filing complaints
By Charity Vogel, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent, 06/03/97
WASHINGTON - They've come a long way, but, according to a women's legal
group monitoring how athletic scholarships are allocated, not far
enough. On the 25th anniversary of Title IX, the National Women's Law
Center yesterday filed complaints of sex discrimination against 25
colleges and universities, including five in New England. The schools
neglected to provide equitable amounts of scholarship dollars to female
athletes, the law center said.
The complaints, filed with the civil rights office of the US Department of
Education and based on 1995 figures, say the schools should ``come into
compliance with Title IX or lose the millions of taxpayer dollars they
benefit from every year,'' said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the
legal group. The New England schools are Boston College, Boston
University, Northeastern University, the University of Maine at Orono, and
the University of New Hampshire. "We think that all of these schools have
serious and substantial problems. We would not say that they're
necessarily the worst,'' Greenberger said.
Title IX, passed in 1972, bars sex discrimination by educational
institutions that receive federal funds. The law was backed up by the
recent Supreme Court decision requiring Brown University and other
institutions to provide athletic programs for men and women in proportion
to their enrollment numbers, or risk losing federal money because of
noncompliance. Greenberger said the list is not a ranking of the worst
violators, but it is a starting point.
``Boston University is giving the average female athlete $3,754 less
during one year alone than the average male athlete,'' Greenberger said.
While females constitute about 55 percent of the university's student body
and about 45 percent of its varsity athletes, only about 32 percent of
athletic scholarship dollars go to women athletes, according to the
complaint. At Boston College, Greenberger noted that women make up about
53 percent of the student body and 37 percent of varsity athletes, while
receiving 31 percent of total athletic scholarship money. The yearly
difference between male and female scholarships, on average, is $1,792,
the complaint stated.
At Northeastern University, women are 44 percent of the student body and
38 percent of varsity athletes, but receive only about 31 percent of
athletic scholarship money, the complaint states. The scholarship gap at
Northeastern is about $1,970 per year. At the University of New
Hampshire, women make up 57 percent of the student body and 50 percent of
varsity athletes, while receiving approximately 41 percent of athletic
scholarship dollars, according to the complaint. The annual difference
between average male and female scholarships is $1,148.
At the University of Maine at Orono, where 47 percent of the student body
and 40 percent of varsity athletes are female, women receive only 26
percent of athletic scholarship dollars, the complaint states The
scholarship gap comes to about $1,991 per year for the average female
student. Both Boston and Northeastern universities said that because the
complaints are based on 2-year-old data they are not valid. Boston
University said it has increased female sports participation to 49 percent
and its scholarship level for female athletes to 36 percent. Scholarship
funding will increase to 43.5 percent by the 1998-1999 academic year, the
school said.
Northeastern University is in the middle of a 5-year NCAA-approved plan to
comply with Title IX, said spokeswoman Mary Breslauer. The plan includes
an extra $300,000 in next year's budget to fund women's programs and
scholarships, which currently show a 43 percent participation level, she
said. According to Breslauer, female athletes at Northeastern currently
receive 36 percent, not 31 percent, of total athletic scholarship
dollars. Boston College had no comment. Attempts to reach the University
of New Hampshire were not successful. Joe Carr, public affairs spokesman
for the University of Maine, said that the school had no comment about the
complaint, but he did say that women's athletic scholarship money had
risen from 26 percent to nearly 33 percent. The school also instituted a
long-term gender equity program in 1995, but Carr said results have been
slow because the program is partially dependent on private finances.
Most colleges and universities included in the complaint showed a
scholarship gap of between $1,000 and $3,000 per year. In response to
challenges that increasing scholarships for female athletes would reduce
opportunities for male athletes, Greenberger offered an analogy. "When
women are paid less, compared to a male worker, the answer is not to lower
the wage of the male worker. The answer is to raise the female worker's
wage. We see it as the same thing here," she said. "The schools on this
list have not exhausted the scholarships that they can give to women."
Greenberger said the complaints are a first step intended to give the
colleges and universities ``a chance to get their houses in order'' before
further legal action is taken.
Globe correspondent Josh Trudell also contributed to this report.
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hungerf
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