Title IX calculations seem screwy anyway

Title IX calculations seem screwy anyway
by NDoggie78 (2022-05-11 10:33:24)
Edited on 2022-05-11 10:54:29

In reply to: Then you're bumping up against Title IX, aren't you? * posted by El Kabong

This came up several years ago when we were debating ACC adding another school to have a tournament (Louisville seemed most likely). I don't remember the exact numbers, but when looking at all varsity sports for teams in the ACC and looking at max scholarships for each, they just didn't add up to 1:1 with women's sports.
I know there are waivers and such, but it seemed at the time that Louisville - compared to the other schools - could add lacrosse. Now maybe they weren't interested and of course their athletic department is in upheaval mode now.

Here's what I found from that discussion on ND vs UofL:
ND has 3 Men's sports that Louisville doesn't have:
Fencing
Hockey
Lacrosse
And 1 Women's sport that Louisville doesn't have:
Fencing (and that one balances out with Men's fencing)
Louisville has Women's sport that ND doesn't have
Field Hockey

So it would seem by Title IX standards compared to ND, Louisville should have plenty of room to add 12.6 scholarships for Lacrosse.

It would be interesting to know how they come up with Title IX numbers. Stanford doesn't seem to have a problem with having every team under the sun.

Title IX doesn't require 1:1 scholarship ratio

It requires that athletic scholarships be proportionate to student body male-female ratio. IIRC, Louisville has a higher ratio of female to male students than ND does, so that might account for at least some of the difference. Whether Louisville could add men's lacrosse notwithstanding that, I don't know.

I realize that, but in my comparison, ND is + 3 mens sports

ND has what equates to 3 more men's sports than UofL (2 additional mens sports + 1 less women's sport)

I don't know how the formula is applied, but Louisville is 54% female vs ND at 48%. That wouldn't seem like what is a 3 sport difference with those sports having 18, 12.6, and 12 scholarships. But of course whether they want to add a sport and are able to add are two different questions

Fwiw, I ran the numbers on Louisville

It seems to me that right now, they're out of compliance with Title IX, unless either: (1) there's something about the computations I'm not understanding; (2) they have a waiver; or (3) Title IX permits a bit of a fudge factor (I'd say this is more than likely, given that it would be nearly impossible to match these numbers completely. The question is, how big a fudge factor do they allow?) Either way, if they add men's lacrosse, they'd probably have to add two women's sports as well in order to make their Title IX numbers better.

I think when someone was running numbers before

all the teams being discussed seemed out of compliance including ND, but I may be mis-remembering and regardless, no one is asking us.

It looked to me like pretty much everyone is out of

Compliance, even Georgia Tech despite a very favorable male:female ratio for Title IX (61-39). I think there is something we're all overlooking, as we don't see any women's groups up in arms about this, as I think they would be if there was mass noncompliance. Maybe the fudge factor is much higher than any of us realize (just spitballing here, but a fudge factor of 10%, while high, is not entirely out of the question.)