Brown University Settles Title IX Dispute

Brown University settled a heated six-year legal battle over the equality of women's athletics last week, a feud that has drawn national attention to the definition of gender equality in sports.

The disagreement was over the interpretation of Title IX, a section of education legislation passed in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination.

In 1993, the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ), a socially progressive law firm in Washington, sued Brown after it cut funding from its women's volleyball and gymnastics teams.

A district judge ruled that Brown was in violation of Title IX in 1995. After a lengthy appeals process that almost brought the case before the Supreme Court, the parties began to negotiate.

Both the TLPJ and Brown University said they were pleased with the result.

In the agreement, which was negotiated over the course of a year, Brown promised to keep the percentage of women athletes within 3.5 percent of the percentage of women enrolled at the college, said Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Bureau.

If women's athletics is cut, or, if a men's program is added, that percentage will shrink to 2.25 percent, Nickel said.

According to Nickel, one of the strengths of the agreement is that it preserves a university's autonomy to implement Title IX in whatever way it sees fit.

"That was the crucial philosophical point in the university's case, that schools need to be in charge of their own programs," Nickel said.

Bryant said he was also satisfied. During the trial, the percentage of women enrolled in the college as well as the percentage of women athletes increased dramatically, he said.

Nickel also praised how the agreement clearly spells out what Title IX means when it says the percentage of women athletes must be "substantially proportionate" to the percentage of women in the student body.

"The 3.5 percent at least gives the athletic director and coaches a clear indication of what is acceptable to courts and both sides in this case."

At Harvard, the gap between percentage of women in the student body and percentage of women enrolled is five percent, according to Assistant Director for Sports Information John P. Veneziano.

While women make up 45 percent of the college, only 40 percent of athletes are women, he added.

However, Harvard is not in violation because it satisfies Title IX in other ways, Bryant said.

According to guidelines offered by the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education in 1979, schools can also meet Title IX if they offer all the sports women at the school want to play or if the school is continuously expanding athletic programs for women, Bryant said.

Brown could have chosen to satisfy Title IX in either of these two ways by simply funding more women's teams, but it insisted on fulfilling the "substantially proportionate" requirement, Bryant said.

Veneziano declined to comment on the Brown case, but said the athletic program for women at Harvard is very good.

"We're providing quality opportunities for females here," he said.