Women of Harvard Athletics Speak Out

As Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise prepares to step down, a new group of athletic leaders is making itself known across Harvard’s playing fields and campus. A group of seniors founded Women of Harvard Athletics — a club aimed at combating what its founders characterize as “underrepresentation” of women in Harvard athletic programs. Citing inequalities in game attendance, cultural attitudes, and institutional and financial support, the new organization hopes to support women athletes through the challenges of underrepresentation with a variety of measures, including workshops, panels, and wellness classes.

We applaud Women of Harvard Athletics’ creation, and are heartened by the rapid growth of the organization, which already boasts over 100 members. Given the horrifying recent national and Harvard related scandals which have disproportionately affected women’s athletics programs, we believe student advocacy on these issues is incredibly important both in its own right and toward spurring the athletics administration to devote more attention to them. As the University and its affiliates more broadly works to overcome the legacy of gender inequality in athletics, the athletic administration should move decisively to address their concerns.

A timely administration response is also crucial, as it will lighten the load on students leading the way. As athletes and students with extensive time commitments in both, these women already face enough work without also having to devote their time to achieving fair representation in athletics, which should go without question to begin with.

Therefore, while we applaud students for leading WHA and working to effect change through it, we worry about the extent to which the extra work they put into these advocacy efforts detracts from their capacity for self-care and the other responsibilities of their lives. The administration should take into account this labor and step up to share the load of these efforts in enacting changes.

Failure to do so on the part of the administration suggests a lack of respect for the difficulty of shouldering the added responsibility of advocating for fairness that should be the bedrock of any competent administration. We hope that going forward the athletic administration, as well as students, will increase efforts to publicize, support, and create events surrounding women’s events as they do for many men’s events.

It is important to note that while this organization seeks to address the difficulties associated with the particular experience of one group at Harvard, namely female athletes, some of those difficulties are not unique to them. WHA no doubt fills a serious gap, but we also hope the group considers how some of their concerns may overlap with those of other groups on campus. The broader problems of body image and increased vulnerability to sexual and gender-based violence affect female-identifying people across Harvard. In recognition of that, we hope WHA considers fostering inter-group dialogue and collaboration across different campus groups to advance common goals for a more equitable community.

As Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay noted in her email announcing his retirement, Scalise’s administration worked to expand opportunities for female athletes during his tenure, most recently through the addition of the women’s rugby team. But this work is only the beginning, and we are glad to see WHA pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a female athlete on our campus and how our community can support these women in their competition and care of self.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.