The Coronavirus Pandemic sent colleges and universities scrambling to make decisions regarding how to deliver their academic offerings to students, with some welcoming students back to campus this fall, some transitioning to 100% remote learning, and some employing a hybrid method.\u00a0 With those decisions came financial implications \u2013 students opting to take a \u201cgap year\u201d or exploring lower-priced alternatives, decreased or eliminated revenue from room and board, decreased or eliminated revenue from ticket sales for athletics and entertainment offerings, and increased expenses for cleaning and sanitization, as well as the maintenance of quarantine spaces.<\/p>\n
For many schools facing these financial obstacles, cutting sports becomes a fiscally-attractive option.\u00a0 Schools looking to do so, however, cannot make their decisions in a vacuum; looming in the distance is Title IX.<\/p>\n
Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal funds, such as student financial aid. \u00a0It applies to sports by ensuring men and women have equitable participation opportunities, as well as access to scholarships.<\/p>\n
While Title IX doesn\u2019t prevent women\u2019s sports from being eliminated, any elimination has to be done in a fair and equitable manner to ensure that the school remains in compliance with the law.\u00a0 In other words, decisions cannot be made solely on the basis of which programs cost the most money and generate the least revenue in return.<\/p>\n
In some respects, the inquiry into whether a school remains in compliance with Title IX after cutting sports is not necessarily what gets cut, but, rather, what is left.\u00a0 That is, do the school\u2019s remaining programs offer equitable participation opportunities and access to scholarships?<\/p>\n
Some schools struggle to balance participation opportunities for women while maintaining profitable football, basketball, and other revenue-generating men\u2019s programs.\u00a0 For example, Division I FBS schools, which provide 85 football scholarships, need a large offering of women\u2019s sports to stay compliant with Title IX, particularly if they also want to offer other men\u2019s sports programs with high scholarship rates like basketball or hockey.\u00a0 Schools also need to consider tuition revenue generated from athletes on partial scholarships, and how eliminating a sports program may affect both sides of the balance sheet.\u00a0 All told, the analysis and decision-making should be a joint effort among all stakeholders, including the athletic department, budget office, and legal\/Title IX team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Coronavirus Pandemic sent colleges and universities scrambling to make decisions regarding how to deliver their academic offerings to students, with some welcoming students back to campus this fall, some transitioning to 100% remote learning, and some employing a hybrid method. With those decisions came financial implications – students opting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[24,167],"tags":[264,322,323,136,40,16],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-ncaa","tag-college-athletics","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-higher-education","tag-ncaa","tag-title-ix"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n