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 support services?

A When evaluating whether men’s and women’s programs are provided comparable support services, the following factors should be assessed:

• Administrative support
• Clerical and secretarial support
• Office space and equipment
• Additional support personnel

As is usual in Title IX reviews, the assessment focuses on the support systems provided to the men’s programs overall compared to the systems provided to the women’s sports overall. A disparity that benefits men in one area may be offset by a comparable benefit to women in another area.

Administrative support

The need for administrative support varies from team to team. Looking at the number of student-athletes on teams and the coach/student-athlete ratio may help assess if comparable administrative support is being given. Overall, the amount of time and effort expended on such responsibilities as team-travel arrangements or the ordering of equipment and uniforms should be similar for the same sports and equitable for non-similar sports.

Problems occur when the so-called revenue-producing sports are given administrative assistants and women’s sports have no such assistants or inequitable support personnel. The result of these disparities often create less coaching time for student-athletes, less recruiting time to build successful programs or inadequate time for other responsibilities.

Clerical and secretarial support

Again, the need for this type of support may vary from team to team, but in general similar teams should have comparable support systems. The coach/student-athlete ratio could be used here once more as a guideline in the assessment process, although it would also be necessary to evaluate the public relations demands for certain sports.

Problems occur when football and men’s basketball teams are each assigned one or more full-time secretaries and women’s teams must share secretarial assistance. Since sharing secretarial help is common in most athletics programs, it is prudent to ensure that the sharing is done on an equitable basis between the men’s and women’s programs to prevent an unfair advantage to the coaches in one program.

Office space and equipment

When assessing whether comparable offices are provided to men’s and women’s coaches, the offices for similar sports should be evaluated and the expectation would be that they would be similar in size and with an equivalent quality of furnishings (for example, desks, chairs, computers, sofas, televisions, telephones, carpeting, lighting and windows). Other factors to consider include assessing the convenience of the head coaches’ offices to the offices of assistant coaches and to the secretarial support personnel and to the practice/competition facilities. As noted earlier, a disparity favoring the coaches of one gender may be offset by another favoring the other gender. For non-similar sports, equitable offices would be expected.

Problems often arise when football and men’s basketball are furnished with office suites rather than individual offices. These suites, which often are of very high quality, should be provided on a comparable basis to the men’s and women’s programs. Similarly, if sharing of offices is a necessity, that sharing must be done in an equitable manner between the men’s and women’s programs.

Additional support personnel

Particularly in Division I, there is an increasing trend to assign specialists to football and men’s basketball. An example of such a specialist would be an audio-visual expert who may videotape practices and games and create attractive highlight videos that can be used for various promotional or PR purposes. In some instances, this AV unit may include more than one full-time person.  Another example would be a recruiting coordinator. While it is permissible to have these people, what is not acceptable is to have them exclusively or predominantly for the men’s program. At some institutions, graduate assistants or part-time employees also are hired to provide additional support for football and men’s basketball. That is certainly allowable, but only if women’s programs are equitably supported. An assessment of the time spent by these additional personnel on all sports is essential to determine if women’s programs are being fairly supported.

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