Athletics equity deadline approaching fast

By Gabrielle Stevenson
Hornet Staff Writer
Published November 18, 1998

Gone are the days when female college athletes competed with only a fraction of the support that their male counterparts received from the university. No longer do they have to have to make do without scholarships, advertising budgets and other financial assistance.

Now the women's teams boast athletic programs that compete with players recruited from the best schools, support from the athletics departments, and play in front of crowds that include more than just family members.

The advances in gender equity in sports were not won easily. A very complex, technical state law was signed into law following a lawsuit by the National Organization for Women. The law gave 19 California State University campuses a five year deadline to comply with the Cal-NOW consent decree.

The May 1999 deadline is now fast approaching for CSU to prove it has achieved gender equity in athletics programs.

While many female athletes would agree that CSUS has made great strides in improving gender equity in its athletic programs, females continue to look more equitable on paper than they do on the field.

The consent decree ordered each university to make three areas more equitable for women -- participation, expenditure and scholarships. NCAA participation and scholarship rates must be within five percent of the NCAA-eligible undergraduates on campus. Expenditure ratios can be within 10 percent of the enrollment.

Unfortunately, even those who sued the universities and helped write the consent decree say the lack of punishment for campuses that do not comply makes it difficult to enforce.

Because of the lack of define consequences, there is little motivation to comply with the Cal-NOW requirements.

"This is the first year that institutions have to be in compliance," said Judith Davidson, CSUS athletic director. "We don't know what the consequences are going to be, and I certainly don't want it to be my job."

Compliance not expected from CSUS

This year, it is projected that six other schools -- Chico, Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Hayward Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo -- will also be in compliance.

Sacramento was not on the list for expected compliance.

But, Davidson disagreed with the projections, saying her department will be in compliance by the end of the 1998-99 school year.

"If everything goes as we planned it to go, we'll be in perfect compliance by this year," Davidson said. "But we won't know until the end of the year.

For all the CSU institutions to be in compliance with the decree would make a statement that the CSU is making an effort to "provide comparable athletic experiences for both men and women," she said.

Out of the 18,702 students at CSUS, NCAA says that 10,588 are eligible to participate in intercollegiate sports. Of those, 5,936 are women, constituting 56 percent of those students eligible.

Because 56 percent of the people on campus are women, to meet compliance, the Hornet athletic program would need to give 56 of its opportunities to women. The total budget for women should be 56 percent of the $3.29 million budget, or $1.8 million.

But, last year, women had only 41 percent of the athletic budget's money. The projected budget for women's athletics for the 1998-99 year falls short of that mark again and is estimated to be $1.5 million.

While Davidson wasn't with Sac State during the Cal-NOW proceedings, she has been part of the process of change since becoming the department head in August of 1996.

"I think there's still a long way to go in terms of Title IX compliance," she said. "I think this is a giant, very good step forward. It's a positive step."

Hard to argue progress while moving backward

While CSU, Fullerton attempted to cut its women's volleyball team due to budget constraints, the football team was spending money to treat its players to hotel stays the night before home games.

This was in spite of a 1972 federal law, Title IX, that required that any university receiving federal financial assistance, in the form of grants or student aid disbursement, had to provide equality in the classroom and in the athletic programs.

To stop Fullerton from disbanding women's volleyball, the National Organization for Women sued the CSU system under a state law that is not as specific as the Title IX law created federally.

"I was contacted by an attorney that was handling the case for the women's volleyball team at CSU Fullerton," Joplin said. "He found this obscure state law that no one seemed to know about and was using it to object to the unnecessary elimination of the women's volleyball team for budget-cutting purposes."

At the same time the existence of volleyball was in jeopardy, Joplin says, CSU Fullerton was keeping their football team and paying for extravagant expenses for the team.

"One has to question some of the choices in the budgeting at some of the universities when they can't come up with $25,000 to $60,000 for a woman's volleyball team and will spend money at the local Ramada Inn the night before home games just because other schools that have winning programs are doing that," she said.

Davidson said that kind of excess isn't a problem at CSUS.

"We could do a lot more for our programs," Davidson said. "But when you look at some of those high-powered programs, there is a lot of excess expenditure that is just wasted. We don't have any excess here. I'd like to have that problem."

Another reason NOW got involved with the case against the CSU system was an actual decline in the participation rates for women despite a federal law, Title IX, requiring all universities to prove equal opportunity in athletics. In California, reports are filed with the state legislature.

"Over the previous 13 yearly reports, they had gone from 36 percent of the opportunities for women to 30 percent," said Joplin. "So it's a little hard to argue that you're making progress when you're going 6 percent backwards."

Joplin said the only way to enforce the law and the universities is for someone to sue them for not doing what the law says.

"Status quo has a habit of rolling along and I don't think things would have changed unless we filed this lawsuit," she said.

Ken Swisher, spokesman for the CSU Chancellor's office, said the numbers have been difficult to comply with from the beginning because of enrollment ratios.

"It's very difficult for CSU schools in particular because our female enrollment is higher than our male enrollment," Swisher said. "But we think we are making progress. I'm looking forward to the next report."

CSUS participation near 50 percent

Participation was up to 49.8 percent of the total with 203 female athletes participating in 10 different CSUS sports during the 1997-98 year. That puts CSUS just shy of compliance since 56 percent of the eligible students were women.

Joplin said she is looking for some positive results from the final reports.

"I think that many of them will be in compliance," said Joplin. "And the rest of them will be fairly close. Most of the schools have taken this very seriously and made the changes they should have been making gradually since the early '70's."

One of the controversies of the consent decree is how the numbers are going to be checked for actual equality on all of the courts and fields.

"Until someone sues them and tells them, 'you really need to do what the law says,' then the status quo will continue," Joplin said. "That goes for almost any law. Unless there is a commitment by the agency or institution to comply, they might choose to fudge on the reports without consequence. There is no penalty base."

Ruth Berkowitz was one of the lawyers from Public Interest Lawyers Group that helped Joplin and NOW bring suit against the CSU system. Berkowitz said the plan for schools who are not in compliance is currently being discussed.

"We're in the ivory tower here," Berkowitz said. "The eyes and ears have to be the athletes and students. They are preparing the reports right now, they said we would have them in a couple of months. Once we have the reports, we are going to go through them and talk to people at each school."

Berkowitz said because they want to see the best possible situation for the athletes, they are going to review each university carefully, and not jeopardize the progress being made.

"We'll fight it if they are not in compliance," she said. "We're still in the process of figuring out how to proceed. We can either go straight to arbitration, or go back to court."

Davidson said the university has come a long way since starting the transition to being equitable.

"We've added sports because of support from Associated Students Inc.," Davidson said. "We've certainly added a lot of scholarships and money into the operating budget. And all of that is very, very positive.

"This year our projection is 47 percent for women's operating budget and 53 percent for men's, which brings us into the 10 percent requirement and the 10 percent NCAA eligible undergraduate requirement. Since we have to be within 10 percent of that, 45 would be the law, so we'll actually be ahead of that."

Davidson also said that the scholarships are budgeted for 51 percent women and 49 percent men.

"Then we will be in compliance," she said. "Now that is barring any unfortunate circumstances, like all the women in the program get chicken pox and they don't play."

The projected numbers for this year include adding people and money into every sport. In order for the Hornets to meet Cal-NOW compliance, they have to add a minimum of 30 female athletes to the current rosters.

Lawsuit brought changes for women's sports

"Since I have been here, the support for our team has been tremendous," senior guard Julie Wastell said of the Hornet basketball program. "I think they are definitely going in the right direction."

Wastell has played basketball at Sac State since she was a freshman. The two-time all-Big Sky guard said there have been some significant changes since she began playing basketball with the Hornets.

"We've gotten more scholarships," she said. "That number has been raised considerably."

Scholarships, along with an increase of funds, have made the Hornet women's programs more competitive.

Senior Rebekah Capel has been on the volleyball team for four years.

"My freshman year we were not in a conference," she said. "We weren't as competitive. My sophomore year we got into the Big Sky. Recruiting has been really good because of that."

Increased advertising for women's sports at CSUS has also made a positive change.

"One thing they have done is made those posters," Capel said. "We didn't have those before. Now they say 'Big Sky Champions' which makes it more interesting and lets more people know about it. There has been a lot more advertising for all the sports."

Increased ad money has brought more students to the games.

"I think we are supported by more students now," Capel said. "The students are more excited about our team."

Wastell said the basketball team was largely supported by family members when she started as a freshman.

"I think we have seen an increase in support," Wastell said. "We get a lot of younger teams, from the high schools, coming out to watch us. It is still pretty dead in there, but we are getting a little more support."

More teams for women means more clubs for men

Davidson does not want to see a loss for men's sports.

"I am not in favor of cutting men's sports to provide opportunities for women," she said.

"If they had been doing what they should have been doing in increasing opportunities for women...they wouldn't have to be making the tough decisions now," Joplin said. "It comes down to 'what do we cut and what do we keep?' We have taken the women off the table."

Davidson believes there should be equal opportunity for both men and women. "I am not in favor of cutting men's sports to provide opportunities for women," she said.

Some of the men's sports are suffering because they are not being sponsored by the universities, and are having to operate under a "club" sport status.

Club sports are not sanctioned by the NCAA and are also not funded by the school.

Most club sports, such as men's volleyball, are fully self-sufficient, but can not participate in NCAA intercollegiate events.

Capel said it would also benefit the women if the men's volleyball team were a NCAA sanctioned sport.

"Our men's team is awesome," Capel said. "It would be great if they could get into the NCAA. The camaraderie of the men's volleyball and the women's volleyball team is not as close as it could be if we were both in NCAA"

The men's rowing team is also a club sport at Sac State. Each athlete must pay $160 each semester, as well as provide all personal gear with the exception of the team T-shirt.

"Honestly, I think the money goes towards travel expenses and a lot of it goes towards the basic running of the program," said rowing team member Jaime Spencer.

The women's rowing program, however, is supported financially by the university. Spencer said the men's team just uses the Sac State name for events.

"I would call it a completely separate entity," he said. "We are not sanctioned like the women's program. The university has to put all the money into the women's programs to compensate for the football program."

Football biggest slice of budget pie

The numbers game also affects those men's sports that are still sanctioned by the NCAA. The men's track team must deal with a smaller roster to keep the total number of men's participants down.

Track coach Joe Neff has been with CSUS for 17 years. He has seen the negative affects of a limited and non-expanding budget that does not allow men and women to both see positive program improvements.

"It places a great strain on the team," Neff said. "I had to cut my own son from cross country, so it's a very personal thing for me."

Neff also coaches the women's track team and has seen the improvements.

"Judith Davidson has done a heck of a job," he said. "She has helped us climb up the ladder. We were really struggling before. We still have some (problems), but there isn't a team here that has everything."

Davidson said none of the men's club sports will be turned into NCAA sanctioned sports to create more opportunities for men.

"Not as long as we have to maintain the Cal-NOW relationship," she said. "Right now what we need to do is focus on making our current sports better. We need to develop the sports that we do have."

While CSUS is not making plans to add any men's opportunities, there are no plans to cut any either.

"Hopefully we'll be in a position to meet all the provisions of Title IX, at the same time preserving the opportunities for men," Davidson said. "I don't ever want to cut a men's sport. I don't believe in that."

Athletic directors around the system are having the make the decisions fairly quickly about how to get money raised and programs at an equitable level.

"It's very expensive to run athletic programs today," Davidson said. "I believe very strongly that women should have the same opportunity that men do to participate. I am very pleased with the direction that we're going. I think we are way ahead of a lot of places.

"It would be nice if CSU would make some money available. I don't mean CSUS, I mean CSU. I think that would help all of the athletic directors."

Davidson said beside the financial aspects of the Cal-NOW decree, there also needs to be some social changes that occur during the process of making an equitable environment at the universities.

"I just saw 60 Minutes and saw that a young girl is pitching in minor league baseball," she said. "Here's a young woman who had the opportunity to play organized baseball. I would have killed to have that opportunity myself. That's what I wanted to do was play (baseball) for the New York Giants when they were still in New York. People thought I was nuts as a little girl. But today it is happening."

It's going to take women's sports longer

"We know that women who participate in organized sports are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, they do better academically and tend to graduate more in greater numbers from college and high school than women who do not participate," Davidson said. "The benefits for women are enormous. Just on those reasons alone, it is important that women have these opportunities. It's also a fundamental question of equality."

While change is slow, there are some good things happening, such as the WNBA, in women's sports, she said.

"It's going to take women's sports still longer to develop and mature. They need to build their own audiences and build their own spectator base. That is beginning to happen. That's important," she said.

Davidson stressed that the goal is not only financial equity, but for the university to ensure that men and women are both getting quality experiences with athletics.

"If they were to reverse, the men should be happy with what the women have the women should be happy with what the men have. Then we've got real equality. Is that dollar for dollar? I don't think so," she said.