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 recruiting?

A Evaluating equity in this area is a complicated task. To do it properly, administrators must be willing to document the nondiscriminatory reasons for the recruiting allocations and decisions made for each program on an annual basis.

Although it should be fairly easy to track dollars spent in this area (notwithstanding some of the creative accounting methods used by some schools to track some recruiting expenses such as telephone usage and travel allocations), the relative amount of money spent by each program is only the beginning of the story. In short, what is equal may not be equitable and vice versa. However, if equal dollars are not allocated, schools must demonstrate why their practices still are equitable and in keeping with the law.

Recruiting needs and expenses are program specific and, even then, fluid from year to year depending on a variety of factors, including but not limited to graduation, injury, competitive needs and overall team chemistry. In addition, there are geographic considerations that affect the amount of money needed to travel to reach the pool of qualified student-athletes in a particular sport in a particular year. All of those considerations are valid provided they are documented fairly and do not have a disproportionately limiting effect upon the recruitment of student of either sex.

There are two major areas of review:

* Whether schools are providing coaches or other athletics personnel in the programs serving male and female athletes substantially equal opportunities to recruit, and

* Whether schools are providing equivalent financial and other resources to meet the needs of each program.

From the following discussion, many other Title IX compliance areas play into whether equivalent recruitment opportunity exists for the overall men’s and women’s programs. It is a good reminder that a program-wide audit often requires institutions to view the laundry-list elements as overlapping and to be flexible when evaluating a department’s overall equity. Although the OCR provides a general framework for evaluating Title IX compliance, it ultimately is up to the individual school to tailor the framework to their own programs and to account for those practices, differences and adjustments made that may not have been anticipated by the governmental (or anyone else’s) guidance.

* Is your school providing coaches or other athletics personnel in the programs serving male and female athletes substantially equal opportunities to recruit?

To make a credible determination, schools have to revisit their analysis of coaches’ availability. If a coach is not available to the same extent as other coaches, he or she will not have an equitable opportunity to recruit. For example, where one person is the head coach of both the field hockey and lacrosse programs, it would appear likely that he or she would not have the same opportunity to recruit for either team as compared to another coach who is responsible only for one program. In addition, if such a coach is somehow able to put in the time necessary to recruit well, he or she most likely would not be available to the current team members to the same extent that other coaches may be, and that would affect the coaching analysis.

Similarly, coaches who have significant out-of-season responsibilities other than coaching on campus may limit his or her recruiting opportunities. Obviously, part-time coaches are at a disadvantage as well. Depending on the size of the athletics department and its resources, many programs may face significant recruiting obstacles. Those hurdles are significant for Title IX purposes only when they disadvantage the overall program of one sex as compared to the overall program of the other sex.

Athletics administrators often state that all coaches have an equal opportunity to recruit and that those who are successful simply put in greater effort. They argue that schools should not be held responsible for inadequate efforts of those who are given equitable opportunity. While that may be true, further investigation often shows that the recruiting budgets, support networks and time available to recruit due to full-time versus part-time coaching assignments and availability of assistant coaches account for at least some of the “effort” disparity.

Some programs’ recruiting efforts are bolstered by the assistance of full-time clerical or administrative help. Coaches that do not have to spend time responding to general inquiries about the program, collating prospective athlete questionnaires, sifting through recruiting reports, responding to high school coaches’ calls or scheduling appointments to meet with prospective parents and players can spend their time more productively on their program in their recruiting efforts. That is compounded for those whose season runs concurrently with the high recruiting period. When teams are in season, need to prepare for their own competitions and yet have to find time to devote to their recruiting efforts, the availability of assistant coaches who can take on recruiting responsibility plays a significant role in easing the burden.

The more difficult issue to address is the coach who is given equitable opportunity and simply does not put in the necessary and equitable effort. The reality is that schools are responsible for the lackluster efforts of the coach/recruiter because the school is responsible for employing the individual in the first place. An institution cannot excuse its failure to comply with Title IX by hiding behind the substandard performance or poor decision-making of an employee it hired in the first place. Coaches are agents of their schools, and therefore schools for the most part must take responsibility for actions (or inactions as the case may be) performed by a coach within the scope of his or her employment. Accordingly, administrators must evaluate the relative efforts of all departmental employees to ensure that coaches are performing to a certain standard and to take remedial steps when they are not.

* Is your school providing equivalent financial and other resources to meet the needs of the men’s and women’s programs respectively?

Budgetary amounts and limits on expenditures are always an important area to review. The allocation of recruiting dollars should start with equal dollars to programs based on respective numbers of student-athletes. If 50 percent of the student-athletes are female, the coaches of the women’s programs should get 50 percent of the recruiting dollars — to start with. Schools may then adjust the allocations based on the particular nondiscriminatory needs of the particular programs.

Money is tight in most athletics departments. Some have cut costs in the recruiting area by developing a strong alumni network that funnels information to coaches and may allow them to forgo expensive visits to evaluate prospects. While Title IX certainly does not require that institutions find alumni to match those efforts, reviews should take such advantages into account and ensure that coaches without such systems have the opportunity and funding to make trips that others may not need.

Some programs have supplemented their recruiting efforts with the donations of their respective booster or friends programs. It is important to remember that all benefits, goods or services provided to programs are subject to the mandates of Title IX no matter the source of the funding. Accordingly, outside funding that may not show up in the budgetary analysis must be counted. By the same token, in-kind donations that benefit teams in the area of recruiting (for example, car rentals, video equipment and alumni receptions) must also be taken in account and analyzed for purposes of equity.

When conducting a review in this area, remember to include coaches. Do they believe that they have sufficient opportunity and the necessary support to recruit? It is something that should be an area of evaluation of each coach for employment purposes anyway, and many administrators are surprised to find that their assessment of the recruiting program may be miles away from the coach’s assessment.

Use the coaches to help in this area. One school in particular did just that. This Division I school faced significant financial difficulties and needed to do a lot with a little. Coaches were brought into the discussions and in the area of recruiting, asked to work with each other to define the priorities of the programs collaboratively. Coaches started discussions and in many instances came up with creative solutions of problems facing colleagues. Some were able to look at other kids when on recruiting trips. Others agreed to forgo some funding in one year for legitimate reasons provided they were assured that they would get the funding the following year. By including the coaches in the mix, the school was able to make it through a difficult financial time with a positive athletics staff. While that might not work everywhere, it shows that equity can work when the people involved work with it.

Finally, the treatment afforded prospective student-athletes on campus should be similar. In the wake of recent recruiting scandals, every institution would be well advised to have a recruiting policy that sets forth rules and regulations for hosts and prospects alike. Exit interviews with all recruits will not only shed light on potential liability issues, but also highlight those practices that work. In addition, all student hosts and recruits should have an emergency phone number of a responsible athletics staff member for those times when emergencies arise. Such policies should apply to all programs equally.

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

Recruiting checklist

1. Key questions:

•  Are the men’s and women’s programs provided equitable recruiting budgets?
•  Have the men’s and the women’s programs been provided the same opportunity and tools to recruit? 
•  Are both programs given the same administrative support to recruit? 
•  Is there a school policy for visits by prospective student-athletes?
•  Are prospective student-athletes treated in the same manner when they visit?

2. Areas to be reviewed for each team:

a. Personnel:

• n Number
• n Other duties
• n Percent of time

b. Area:

• n State 
• n Regional
• n National

c. Methods:

• Telephone -- School/home   
•   Mail  -- Tournament
•  E-mail -- Event
• Travel -- Camp

d. Campus visits:

•  Subsidized  --  Number
• Unsubsidized -- Quality 

e. Budget/expenses:

• Amount
• Limitations/reason for limitation