The Gender-Equity Q&A is intended to help athletics administrators understand institutional gender-equity and Title IX-related issues. Answers for the Q&A are provided by Christine Grant, associate professor at the University of Iowa, and Janet Judge, attorney with Verrill & Dana LLP.

Title IX measures athletics compliance in three separate areas (participation, financial aid and treatment) with individual tests for each. When assessing compliance in these areas, although each area should be reviewed individually, the treatment of the men’s and women’s programs overall is dispositive for compliance purposes.

Accordingly, a disparity in one area that favors one sex may be offset by a similar disparity in another area that favors the opposite sex. For the next several issues of the Gender-Equity Q&A, we will address ways to review each treatment (also known as “the laundry list”). Of course, each program will have its own unique characteristics and any review will have to be tailored to the circumstances of the program in question.

Q  How is equity measured in the area of publicity?

A Three factors need to be assessed when evaluating whether there is equitable treatment of men’s and women’s programs in this area:

n Quality and availability of sports information personnel.

n Access to other publicity resources for men’s and women’s programs.

n Quantity and quality of publications and other promotional devices.

Unfortunately, many outside media personnel have chosen not to publicize and/or promote women’s sports to the same degree as they have supported men’s sports. In addition, some collegiate athletics departments have relied upon that practice as justification for providing fewer sports information and marketing services for their women’s programs. While Title IX does not have jurisdiction over the general media, it does apply to colleges and universities and, more specifically, to the provision of publicity to both the men’s and women’s programs.

While no athletics department can guarantee coverage of women’s teams in the papers, on the radio or on television, an institution can guarantee that equivalent efforts to publicize and promote the women’s programs are in effect. Title IX requires that departments strive to meet the overall goal of equivalent publicity for men’s and women’s sports overall.

Sports information personnel

At most institutions, there are likely to be few full-time professional sports information personnel, but they are assisted by several students with varying degrees of experience and expertise. One fair way to make team assignments is to have the professional staff service the same number of men’s and women’s teams and to share equitably the student pool between the men’s and women’s programs.

The quality of the work should be comparable if the aforementioned method of assignment is used. Compliance issues arise when professional personnel are assigned to football and men’s basketball while students are assigned to cover the women’s teams. It also would be problematic, for example, to have the professional staff assigned to three men’s teams and only one women’s team.

The availability of personnel can be established by investigating the number of home events and the number of away events attended by the sports information person assigned to each sport.  A common problem is found when men’s teams have support people both at home and away events while women’s teams have them at home events only. Another problem exists if the professionals cover the men’s teams on the road while students travel with the women.

Certainly some allowances may be acceptable where media demands for one sport may be greater than for other sports, but it is important to tread carefully here. The OCR has recognized that a disparate amount of time and effort may be directed toward a particular athlete up for a national award. Each case is evaluated on its own merits, however, and it is important to have a nondiscriminatory policy that ensures similar coverage on both sides of the aisle for athletes of similar note. In general, it would be prudent to analyze overall the time spent by the professional staff and by students on the men’s program compared to that spent by each group on the women’s program and to document those nondiscriminatory reasons (if any) for disparities that may exist.

Publications

At some universities, publications may include media guides, game programs, schedule cards, posters and press releases. When attempting to assess the quality of those publications, one should consider such factors as the size of the publication, number of pages, quality of the paper and cover, and color versus black and white. The quantity can be assessed by checking with the coach to find out if the team’s needs are being met.

A common way to ensure equitable treatment is to provide equivalent quality of media guides to the same number of men’s and women’s teams. Identical thickness of media guides is not required since some men’s teams have a much longer history and therefore many more statistics. Again, be careful about the overall picture. For example, a full-fledged media campaign for a football team would not necessarily be offset by a campaign for a smaller women’s team. The numbers — both in terms of dollars and personnel hours — would show a disparate amount of time, energy and money devoted to the men’s program in this area.

A common problem occurs when football and men’s basketball have a higher quality of media guides than women or when more men’s teams have a higher quality of media guides. A recent problem also has been developing in that football at some institutions now has a media guide for the fall season, a different media guide for a bowl game and a third media guide for the spring football game. The time, energy and money required to produce three media guides in one year for one team may be creating a compliance problem at those schools.

For game programs/schedule cards and posters, again, the easiest way to treat teams in an equitable fashion is to ensure that the same number of men’s and women’s teams have a similar quality of items.

For press releases, two practices can help ensure fairness in this area. First, issue press releases for all teams in season at the same intervals, and second, issue press releases for the same teams in similar quantities and to similar locales.

That is an area where the institution can help the media develop an interest in women’s sports and thereby increase the coverage. If the institution fails to do so, there is little hope of achieving greater media coverage for women’s sports.

Other publicity/promotional resources

Some institutions have been successful in publicizing, promoting and marketing their women’s teams and are now reaping the positive benefits of increased spectatorship and sponsorship. The minimum threshold for compliance in this area is that the effort made by the institution to publicize, promote and market its women’s program must be equivalent to that expended for its men’s program. It is the degree of effort that will be assessed rather than the results.

A common problem arises when an athletics director determines that only the few sports that have the potential to bring in revenue will be promoted and marketed. For example, there would be a compliance problem if football, men’s basketball, men’s ice hockey and women’s basketball were assigned the bulk of the promotional time, effort and money. Thus, institutions that have “major/ minor classifications” or a “tier system” should investigate the promotional devices being used in all sports in order to ensure that the women’s program is receiving an equitable share of the personnel and the finances in that area.

When it comes to the medium used for publicity (for example, newspapers, radio and TV) again, efforts to publicize, promote and market women’s teams should be equivalent to the efforts for men’s teams. A common problem occurs when resources are used primarily or exclusively for men’s teams. That occurs often when men’s events are promoted through paid advertisements in the newspapers, on radio or on television. Another compliance problem arises if a university pays, or helps pay, for a coach’s show on radio or on television in any of the men’s sports but fails to do so for any women’s sports.

As for support groups, the basic rule of thumb is that they should be made equally available for men’s and women’s events, both at home and away. These groups include cheerleaders, mascots, marching band or pep band, and dance squads.

It would be prudent to have written policies in all areas related to publicity to ensure compliance with the law.

For additional gender-equity resources, including newly created video segments featuring Christine Grant and Janet Judge, visit www.ncaa.org/gender_equity.