TheBearcatHimself wrote:Did UO need to drop wrestling AND add women's cheer if adding baseball?
Oregon is out of compliance with T9, which is why to add a men's sport, they had to drop a men's sport. I question their decision to add competitive cheer, as it's not a major Pac10 sport. I would rather have seem them add another sport that more Pac10 schools practice.
TheBearcatHimself wrote:I was under the impression that Title IX required an equal amount of teams, does it have a stipulation requiring an addition to both men's and women's sports teams?
Your impression is not entirely correct. T9 has 3 forms of measurements that satisfy the courts:
(a) proportion of opportunities / scholarships is in proportion to the gender make up of the school.
(b) show that the school is expanding women's opportunities (this is the prong that Oregon is following)
(c) show that the school is meeting the interests of the women.
Regarding (a) this is the easiest to measure - compare # of scholarships and spots on teams compared to the number of women / men's percentages on campus. Note that this does not measure teams. This is because Men's Football has 85 scholarships, and women's lacrosse has 12 scholarships. That is not an equal proportion. You need 3-4 women's teams to balance out men's football. There is no rule requiring the same sport for both men and women. If there were - women's football would be offered at all DI colleges. This is why you see women's gymnastics at many Pac10 schools, but not men's gymnastics.
Regarding (b) This is why Oregon is adding another women's sport - to show expanding opportunities for women. They are adding a new sport every 3-4 years to slowly expand. It helps manage money, but it leaves room for interpretation. How fast should expansion be carried out?
Regarding (c) this is the most difficult to measure. If you send out interest forms to women on campus and ask them to fill in their favorite sport, or sport they wish was available, do the forms not returned "count" as lack of interest? What if they are not mailed to the right address (college kids move a lot). What if they are emailed and land in the junk folder? Lots of room for interpretation, worries about landing in the courts with legal challenges. Boise State used this method to choose women's lacrosse as the next sport to add at BSU.
TheBearcatHimself wrote:how can this be applied to the possibility of men's and women's lacrosse teams in the future in the Pac-10
I am skeptical that men's lacrosse will come to the Pac 10 any time soon. Most schools are still cutting men's sports. OSU may cut a men's sport, UCLA recently cut some men's sports, and the Arizona schools have put off adding new sports. There is only so much money to go around.
And some schools are already compliant with the (a) prong of T9, and since they have limited budgets, they are not lookin to add another sport. Some schools have only partially funded sports (men's and women's - particularly at UCLA). I think they would fully fund those sports, before they would start to add more sports.
The athletic directors want to be fiscally sound, and also competitive, so if they have extra funds, they will round out the scholarships for the sports they already have.
More success will happen at the DIII level, because those athletes are paying tuition themselves, and the college presidents and athletic directors all want kids whose parents will pay their way w/o financial aid, and will give back to the schools later on.