In the Adding Diving Thread, dragon made the comment that Rice was currently not in compliance with Title IX. I thought this was important enough to warrant its own thread and not water down the Swimming & Diving discussion.

I am assuming that Rice was in compliance at some point. How did Rice fall out of compliance? Certainly don’t remember any men’s sports being added, female sports being dropped, or scholarship numbers in the existing sports being added (men’s) or dropped (women’s). How do you fall out of compliance?

To add what others have said, I certainly hope adding softball is the fix.

https://titleixschools.com/wp-content/up...3-2301.pdf

... offers some insight

One way of balancing to add women's sports. Another way is to cut men's sports.

How is the men's (basketball/tennis/baseball/anything) team doing?

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Hogshead-Makar

There are several ways to be in or out of compliance. Numbers of athletes per sex is just one.

The easiest way to be in compliance would be either to add women's rowing and/or drop baseball.

What about women’s lacrosse or rugby. Seems like existing on campus facilities could be used.

Rugby isn't a NCAA sport-women's lax would work.

Actually, I would not be surprised to see Rice add women's water polo. It's only 8 scholarships, but teams typically have 25 or so members.

What’s the consequence for being out of compliance? I find it odd that we’ve been non-compliant for some time and haven’t addressed it till now.


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(01-31-2024 06:37 AM)RiceBull Wrote:  What’s the consequence for being out of compliance? I find it odd that we’ve been non-compliant for some time and haven’t addressed it till now.


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I heard rumblings about this from women athletes when I was an undergrad more than a decade ago. I'm not sure this is the first time these allegations have been filed. I wouldn't be surprised if Rice has been teetering on the edge of regulatory action and the same complaint gets tried with each change of administration to see what their appetite is.

(01-30-2024 09:02 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rugby isn't a NCAA sport-women's lax would work.

As far as Title IX is concerned, the sport doesn't have to be through the NCAA. If we could give non-NCAA rodeo or sailing scholarships, those would contribute towards compliance. For what it's worth, though, women's rugby is in the nascent stages of NCAA governance as an "emerging sport" (the men's game does not have that designation). This organization seems to be in charge. They only have 30 schools with varsity programs, and the closest one is in South Carolina.

Lacrosse wouldn't be geographically much better. Even though we're already in the American Athletic Conference, the only full members in AAC lacrosse are Temple and ECU. The rest are James Madison, Florida, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, and ODU. The south-central US is really a dead zone for college lacrosse.

All we have to do is have half the football team identify as female and we're golden, right?? Do we have to actually NAME them?? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of 'outing' them and violate privacy??

I kid... sort of...

If you read the complaint (by read, I mean peruse), it seems that the argument here is essentially that because girls in Texas play so many sports... women at Rice should also play so many sports. It seems that this is an allegation/lawsuit... right?? And not a finding by the NCAA?? This seems like an advocate pushing for change. I get that, but that doesn't mean we aren't in LEGAL compliance with the NCAA, so she's really pushing to change that definition.

The complaint looks mostly/solely at headcount... which of course works WAY against baseball... and yet despite football numbers (which includes WO's) and baseball headcount, there are only 79 more men playing sports than women. With (according to the complaint) Rice being 52% male.... 2% of the (what is it now?) 6000 undergrads.... that's 120 more men than women. 79 in athletics may be a bit out of whack relative to that, but 'more' men than women is not. If you adjust it for 'scholarships' which drops mens sports down somewhat, I suspect that is how we are in 'general' legal compliance.

Of course if you are a massive school you can shoot for equal numbers, but then there will still be complaints about equal dollars or equal salaries or eventually, equal NIL just like the Women's Pro Sports arguments...

Another part of legal compliance is 'meeting the desire'. Part of the reason we don't offer LAX or Softball is that there is not a demonstrable desire on the part of Rice women to play it competitively. In the complaint it alleges that Rice women participate in a number of club sports...

Quote:including badminton, ballroom dance, basketball, dance, rowing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, golf, sailing, soccer, tennis, triathlon, ultimate frisbee, water polo.

Now some of these are not NCAA sports... Would someone on academic or needs based scholarship who participates in badminton be considered part of that compliance? Others of them like perhaps equestrian and triathalon... I suspect are not really 'club' sports... in that they don't compete against other 'schools'... but are merely sports that a few women independently participate in.... and we already give scholarships for soccer, tennis and basketball. This part of the complaint seems like 'filler'.

So removing those sports where we already offer scholarships... and pending clarification on removing those sports that the NCAA does not sponsor... there are not a lot of sports that (according to the complaint) women at Rice compete in to OFFER scholarships.

I've said for years though that many sports like badminton, fencing, golf and ultimate frisbee would not be expensive to sponsor and could already generally attract women who are also good students/be eligible for scholarship anyway. If they don't have to be NCAA sports, I'd STRONGLY go for sponsoring cheer and/or dance. Sports that TONS of girls, especially in Texas but really everywhere compete in and then have relatively few places to go for college on much scholarship.... most cheer scholarships are a few thousand dollars per year.... and big-time 'tournaments' already exist.... and while the costs aren't 'nothing'... they aren't what Softball are.... and we would be a HUGE target for 'the best and brightest' since 'cheer' isn't really a professional career.

Combine that with scholarships for 'band' (not orchestra, but band) and you might really have a cohesive plan to making athletics a true part of the University.

It's really all about semantics to me.
If we give someone 50% need based aid because their family makes less than 100k/yr or merit based because they were an A student in high school... and they play in the band or dance on the dance team or cheer on the sidelines, why don't we just give them a 50% 'cheer' scholarship... that can convert to needs based if they decide to stop?? How about the girl who is getting a $10,000/yr academic grant who is also in the MOB. Why don't we call it a MOB grant?

Seriously, what difference does it make what we CALL these scholarships? The only reason I can think of is that you might have a brother and sister (two equally yoked individuals) and the boy is on need based and the girl is on MOB scholarship, but now doesn't get 'need based' and that is somehow unfair... but this is fundamentally no different from a football player who might qualify for need based aid but doesn't get it because he get's a football scholarship.... and his twin sister does.