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Cougar Athletics celebrates
with clinic Saturday, Jan. 28 WSU Athletics will celebrate 2012 National Girls and Women in Sport Day with a free sport skills clinic for girls K-8th grades 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Jan. 28, in Bohler Gym on the Pullman campus.
Skills will be taught by student-athletes, who also will participate in an autograph session.
Lunch and a t-shirt are included, as well as free admission to the WSU women’s basketball game against Arizona at 1p.m. in Beasley Coliseum.
To register, go here.
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PULLMAN, Wash. – Forty years after gender equity in education became federal law, opportunities for female athletes still don’t match those for males, says a Washington State University expert in sport law.
“If male and female participants were to trade places, would the males be happy with the opportunities and resources they would have?” asked Professor Cathryn Claussen. “When the answer is yes, we’ll know we’ve arrived at the full potential of Title IX.”
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Those simple words have proven difficult to implement for financial and cultural reasons.
Claussen, an attorney who heads WSU’s Sport Management Program, is known internationally for her research and writing about athletics equity. Title IX, she notes, applies to all areas of education and has unquestionably boosted academic and career opportunities for girls and women.
But in the world of high school and college sports, she says, there’s a long way to go.
“For example, female college athletes receive a much larger share of the athletics operating budget than in the past – 34 percent in 2011 compared to 2 percent in 1971 – but still receive less than an equitable share.”
Among her other examples:
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Girls represent 42 percent of high school athletes, but 50 percent of high school graduates, and 43 percent of college athletes, but 57 percent of university undergraduates.
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Coaches of women’s teams overall are paid less than coaches doing comparable jobs for men’s teams, and men coach more than half of women’s teams.
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There is a continuing perception that females are less interested in sports than males.
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Women’s sports get less than 10 percent of newspaper sports section coverage and airtime on TV sports news.
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When men’s teams are eliminated for budget reasons, Title IX continues to be blamed instead of athletic department and university prioritizing of football and other high profile sports.
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One big stumbling block to gender equity, Claussen said, is “the almost sacred status of American football.”
“Some people are still calling for football to receive special treatment and not be included as just another male sport when trying to balance participation opportunities for males and females,” she said. “I’m not sure why that’s the case, unless football players constitute a third sex.”
Claussen noted that 2012 also marks the 25th anniversary of the Washington State Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of WSU’s women athletes and coaches in Blair vs. Washington State University. See a related article in Washington State Magazine here.