How Title IX Helped Save College Sports Teams Cut During the Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- After being axed in the pandemic’s early days, some college sports teams are being reinstated after student athletes showed the cuts made schools noncompliant with Title IX.  

The landmark 1972 law protects students from discrimination based on sex, including in college sports. If schools eliminate teams, it requires the proportion of men and women in their athletic programs to be roughly the same as the gender mix in their undergraduate populations. Colleges threatened with lawsuits during the pandemic failed this test.

Campaigns to point out the discrepancy have resurrected teams including women’s swimming and diving at the University of Iowa, men’s track at Clemson University in South Carolina, and volleyball at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

“You can’t discriminate against women or men because of Covid or financial pressures,” said Arthur Bryant, 67, a partner at Bailey & Glasser who helped resuscitate a dozen women’s teams at schools such as Brown University and Dartmouth College.

A Reinstatement Blueprint

About 460 U.S. college teams have dissolved since March 2020, according to Jason Bryant, president of the National Wrestling Media Association, who has been tracking the cuts. Some 145 of those were casualties of college closures or mergers. Of the other roughly 320 teams at four-year schools, about 50 have been reinstated, he said. 

In some cases, they were revived after schools achieved more solid financial footing. At Stanford University in Californa, a reliable pipeline for Olympic athletes, 11 teams were restored after its investment returns improved and alumni pledged a flood of donations.

But sounding the Title IX alarm has been central to other reinstatements. While doing so can mean going all the way to a courtroom, during the pandemic, it often merely entailed a threatening letter. Arthur Bryant’s work to bring back the women’s varsity squash team at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania offers a blueprint for how several such campaigns have worked.

In a September letter to Dickinson’s president, Bryant cited the school’s own data to show a Title IX violation: In the school year ended June 2020, Dickinson counted  among its undergraduate students 1,193 women and 898 men — 57% women. However, the school’s athletic teams had 243 women and 326 men, meaning women composed only 43% of that group, he wrote.

“Dickinson needs to add women’s opportunities to comply with Title IX,” Bryant wrote.

The college reversed course on the squash program in October after Bryant’s firm raised questions about whether the decision to change the team’s status complied with Title IX, said Craig Layne, a spokesperson.

“Dickinson is committed to the women’s squash program and will dedicate appropriate resources toward its success,” Layne said.  The men’s team wasn’t reinstated.

The return of the women’s team brought relief for Courtney Trail, 22, a senior on the team.

“I’m finished at the end of the year,” said Trail, a psychology major from New Zealand. “But for the freshman, sophomores and juniors, I was overwhelmed they would be able to finish their experience.”

‘Out on a Limb’

Bryant first represented female athletes on Title IX issues in a case involving Philadelphia’s Temple University in 1985. He said the pandemic brought a flood of athletics work unseen in decades. 

When Bryant pursued reinstatement of Dartmouth College’s women’s swimming and golf teams, Kristen Chen, a senior engineering major, volunteered to be a named participant. Chen was relieved she ultimately didn’t have to testify against the New Hampshire school.

“We were proud of how we went out on a limb to do it,’’ said Chen, 21, a golf team member. “Overall, we were overjoyed with the fact that we were able to play.”

Criticizing schools on such a sensitive issue has sometimes been a difficult decision. Sage Ohlensehlen, 22, was a plaintiff in a case that resulted in reinstatement for the women’s swimming and diving team at University of Iowa. She said she still has nightmares about having to publicly denounce her school and testify in court. 

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a gold medalist in swimming at the 1984 Olympics and an activist, helped Ohlensehlen’s team connect with attorney James Larew. She supported efforts at several schools to fight cuts. 

“The only thing that’s going to make a change is a lawsuit,” said Hogshead-Makar, whose organization, Champion Women, pushes for equality and accountability in sports. 

While Title IX is often thought of as a bolster for women’s sports, it has been invoked during the pandemic to revive men’s programs, too. At Clemson, the men’s track, field and cross-country teams were restored after the cuts resulted in women being overrepresented in the ranks of athletes.

Russell Dinkins, a former track star at Princeton University, has advocated for several men’s track teams to be reinstated, noting that Black men represent high proportions of athletes in the sport. He said he suspects pandemic cuts were an excuse at some schools to do away with programs that didn’t bring in big money. After all, many of the castoffs — like golf or fencing teams — aren’t exactly cash cows.

“They did think they could get away with it,’’ Dinkins said. “I think a lot of athletic directors were eyeing this opportunity for a long time.’’

The Title IX reinstatement efforts may have a long-term impact by bringing renewed focus on compliance with the law, Hogshead-Makar said. As college enrollment increasingly tips towards women, there may be greater need for change in longstanding allocations of resources and teams.

“More women are going to colleges, and are owed more sports opportunities,” Hogshead-Makar said. “The gap is growing.”

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