Title IX questions surround recent cuts

Ensuring compliance with Title IX was a concern in the decision to axe four men's sports teams, Duquesne University Athletic Director Greg Amodio said in a published interview last week. Amodio, who has not responded to interview requests from The Duke, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the cuts would ensure long-term compliance with the federal mandate and would leave more money for the remaining teams. Amodio's comments ended three days of silence after the cuts were announced last Monday.

Title IX is a law that aims to prevent gender discrimination in higher education. In Duquesne's case, this means that spending for men's and women's athletics programs should be proportionate to the school's male and female populations.

Phil Racicot, associate athletic director for administration, said the decision to cut the teams was mainly based on the economy, but that Title IX was unavoidable.

"[It's] always an issue," he said.

In response to the economic recession in 2008, the University initiated a financial review of the athletic department, and asked the department to modify its budget. Racicot said the review revealed the potential benefits for cutting the men's teams and redistributing the funds within the athletic department.

According to Racicot, there are several reasons why the department decided to cut men's swimming, wrestling, baseball and golf, including facility limitations and an inability for competitive success.Racicot also believes that fewer sports on campus will enhance the "athlete experience" for the remaining athletes.

Amodio was not available for an interview because, according to the athletic department, he was out of town.

Eric Pearson, chairman of College Sports Council, a group dedicated to saving college sports programs and reforming Title IX, said he has seen a trend develop over the past 10 years of schools dropping men's sports because of Title IX.

Although the threat of a lawsuit can drive a university to modify its athletic programs for Title IX, Pearson said there are other reasons as well. Complaints can be filed with the federal Office for Civil Rights. The NCAA also reevaluates Title IX compliance every five years.

"A lot of people think that if the school's not being sued, it's not a problem," Pearson said. "They get pressure from every angle basically."

According to Pearson, universities use three methods to show that they are compliant with Title IX. The first one is proportionality, which is the method Duquesne used. In this method, the ratio of male to female athletes has to be close to the ratio of male to female students at the school.

Before the cuts, student athletes were 54 percent male and 46 percent female. After the cuts, they were 46 percent male and 54 percent female. The University's student body is 42 percent male and 57 percent female, according to data from the Department of Education.

Other schools comply by demonstrating that they have added a team in the past five years or by demonstrating that the school has made an effort to survey what the underrepresented gender is interested in.

Pearson said he feels the NCAA's lack of support for surveys indicates that student athletes are not the group's primary interest.

"It serves the interest of ADs [athletic directors] and school administrators, not student athletes," Pearson said. "The NCAA is run by ADs and administrators; it's very self serving."

According to Racicot, adding teams would have been an alternative option the athletic department could have taken, but since budget was the main concern for the University, adding new teams would have had the opposite effect.

Racicot said the University decided that working with a consultant to make sure this decision would be in its best interest. The consultant was a nationally recognized Title IX gender equity expert who has worked with numerous universities.

Pearson said many of these consultants are former gender activists who have a reputation for cutting men's sports teams, but Racicot said the consultant that the University employed did not have this reputation. The consultant, Racicot said, was a strong proponent of "athletics in general."

Athletes whose sports were cut disagreed.

"I would have rather [the department] look into other reasons or show us that [they] looked into other reasons and tell us why they wouldn't have worked," said Tony Clark, a sophomore on the wrestling team.

Clark said the athletic department never explained its reasons for the cuts.

Jim O'Hara, a junior on the swim team, said he felt Duquesne made a bad decision.

"I think [the department] took the easy way out," O'Hara said.