I was curious about Texas, so I did some research
by tf86 (2019-03-26 15:18:33)

In reply to: Correct Title IX is the big impediment  posted by Steelhop


Since I've heard them mentioned as a possible future add for Division I lacrosse. Texas has 47% male enrollment, 53% female.

Based on current sports sponsored, 53.04% of athletic scholarship dollars spent at Texas go to male student-athletes, assuming the following (all certainly reasonable, although not necessarily correct):

1. Texas awards maximum scholarships permitted by NCAA in all sports currently sponsored;
2. Texas waives out-of-state surcharge for scholarship student-athletes who are not state residents. This is common for public schools at the Division I level. It is usually recorded as institutional support for purposes of accounting; and
3. Texas sets cost of attendance at same amount for all athletic scholarships (schools have some discretion in setting cost of attendance).

Texas does not have either men's or women's lacrosse currently. If they were to add both simultaneously, percentage of athletic scholarship dollars awarded to male student-athletes would decline very minimally, to 52.89%. If they added women's lacrosse alone, percentage of athletic scholarship dollars awarded to male student-athletes would decline to 50.79% (same assumptions as above made in each case).

I would assume that Title IX permits some wiggle room between enrollment percentages and scholarship percentages, if for no other reason than that athletic scholarships provide such a small sample size viz. total enrollment that it would be nearly impossible for any school to match percentages exactly. What I don't know is how much wiggle room is permitted, and in what direction. But it seems, at a minimum, that Texas could add both men's and women's lacrosse without hurting itself from a Title IX standpoint.

The most notable takeaway of all, with respect to Texas, is that Texas may sponsor the minimum number of sports permitted for an FBS school (depending on whether cross-country and track and field are considered the same sport for that purpose, they are considered the same sport for athletic scholarship purposes). In that event, if Texas has, or later encounters, a Title IX issue, the only way for them to address it would be by adding sports programs.

It's sad that, among FBS schools, only Michigan and Utah have added men's lacrosse since ND in 1982. UMass also has joined the FBS football/Division I men's lacrosse club in that timeframe, but in UMass' case, lacrosse came first. They didn't elevate football to FBS until later.