TITLE IX, COMPLIANCE, ENFORCEMENT
SAMPLING OF PENALTIES
For level I and II violations: • Limits on postseason play • Financial penalties • Scholarship reduction • Head coach restrictions • Recruiting restrictions • Probation
tITLE IX
Besides athletics, what areas of university life does Title IX apply? • Academics • Housing • Facilities • Intramurals & club sports • Campus safety
RECRUITING DEFINITIONS
Contact: • A contact occurs any time a coach has a face-to-face contact with you or your parents off the college's campus and says more than hello. Contact also occurs if a coach has any contact with you or your parents at your high school or any location where you are competing or practicing • Contact Period • During this time, a college coach may have contact on or off campus and may watch you play/visit high school. You may visit campus and the coach may write and call you • Dead period • Coach may not have any in person contact with you or your parents during this time. Coach may write and call you during this time
RECRUITING DEFINITIONS
Evaluation • An evaluation is an activity by a coach to evaluate your academic or athletic ability. This would include watching you practice or compete • Evaluation period • Coach may watch you play but cannot have any in-person conversations with you off of the college's campus. Coach may write or call you. You may visit campus. • Official visit • Any visit to a college by you paid for by the college. The college may pay for: transportation, room & meals while visiting and reasonable entertainment expenses, including 3 free admissions to athletics contest • Before an official visit, you will have to provide a high school transcript (DI only), standardized test score, & register with NCAA eligibility center
Sampling of penalties
For level III and IV violations: • Termination of the recruitment of a prospect • Forfeiture of contests • Prohibition from recruiting • Institutional fines • Reduction in number of financial aid rewards • Suspension of head coach or other staff
RULES EDUCATION
Fundamental aspect of emphasis for compliance personnel • Education must extend beyond the department (coaches, players, etc) to include boosters, prospective student-athletes, and any others involved with the department • Head coach is responsible for creating n atmosphere of compliance and monitor activities of their staff • Can be held responsible for the actions of individuals within the program • Louisville example • If red flags do arise, coaches should understand that it is there responsibility to immediately report suspected and actual rule violations
SEXUAL ASSAULT & TITLE IX
How does Title IX apply to student-on-student sexual violence? • Under Title IX, federally funded schools must ensure that students of all ages are not denied or limited in their ability to participate in or benefit from the school's educational programs or activities on the basis of sex. A school violates a student's rights under Title IX regarding student-on-student sexual violence when the following conditions are met: • (1) the alleged conduct is sufficiently serious to limit or deny a student's ability to participate in or benefit from the school's educational program, i.e. creates a hostile environment; and • (2) the school, upon notice, fails to take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the sexual violence, eliminate the hostile environment, prevent its recurrence, and, as appropriate, remedy its effects.
VIOLATIONS AND INFRACTIONS
Major Violation found • Enforcement committee compiles a case summary outlining allegations, individuals involved, • Penalties are announced 6-8 weeks after hearing • Penalties vary on severity but involve termination of employment, post season competition ban, forfeiture of wins, fins, scholarship and recruiting limits • Death Penalty: eliminating the sport for 1+ years, eliminating scholarships for 2+ years, and eliminating NCAA voting privileges for 4 years • Only applicable to repeat offenders, only be implemented once - Southern Methodist U in 1987 • Infractions committee - made up of lawyers, member-school law professors, individuals from the general public (Div III - 5 members, Div 1 - 10 members) • Serves as independent group responsible for assessing penalties against institutions and individuals who break NCAA Rules
VIOLATIONS AND INFRACTIONS
Most institutions commit several violations a year • Most are innocent mistakes; secondary violations • isolated or inadvertent breach that does not or is not intended to provide a significant advantage • lack of knowledge, miscommunication or oversight • self-reported and resolved administratively • Repeated secondary violations, may be elevated to major infraction status, in which case the institution becomes subject to the process and penalties associated • Major violations provide extensive recruiting or competitive advantage • Accused institutions are investigated by NCAA enforcement staff
VIOLATIONS AND INFRACTIONS
NCAA Investigation • Letter of inquiry sent to university president/chancellor from NCAA enforcement staff • Enforcement staff conducts investigation to determine whether violations occurred • Interviews, document collection - phone records, bank records, academic transcripts • If major violation discovered: notice of allegations sent to school president/chancellor and copied to AD, executive officer of conference, and FAR • School must respond to allegations, hearing date is set with infractions committee
COMPLIANCE
NCAA description of institutional responsibility for compliance: • Each institution shall comply with all applicable rules and regulations of the Association in the conduct of its intercollegiate athletics programs. It shall monitor its programs to assure compliance and to identify and report to the Association instances in which compliance has not been achieved. In any such instance, the institution shall cooperate fully with the Association and shall take appropriate corrective actions. Members of an institution's staff, student-athletes , and other individuals and groups representing the institutions athletics interests shall comply with the applicable Association rules, and the member institution shall be responsible for such compliance.
TITLE IX
No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefit of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." • What are the 3 prongs? • Proportionality • Continuing program expansion • Accommodation of unmet interest
RECRUITING
Recruiting is a major, pressure filled aspect of coach jobs • Increases pressure to bring in top athletes • All staff involved in recruiting are required to pass an annual exam demonstrating knowledge of NCAA bylaws to be allowed to recruit off campus • Sport and division specific contact periods and rules • NCAA sets recruiting calendars for Div 1 & II • Designates dates for contact, evaluation, quiet and dead (no contact) periods • Div III allowed to begin recruiting through unlimited call and recruiting materials as early as first year of high school
TITLE IX - PARTICIPATION
Roster spots per sport • Allows for double counting of athletes in multiple sports • Practice players • Male practice players on female teams
Sampling of penalties
Schools can impose their own sanctions before the NCAA does. Why would a school self impose sanctions?
CURRENT TOPICS IN TITLE IX
Sexual Assault • What is sexual violence • Sexual violence, as that term is used in this document and prior OCR guidance, refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person's will or where a person is incapable of giving consent (e.g., due to the student's age or use of drugs or alcohol, or because an intellectual or other disability prevents the student from having the capacity to give consent). A number of different acts fall into the category of sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual abuse, and sexual coercion. Sexual violence can be carried out by school employees, other students, or third parties. All such acts of sexual violence are forms of sex discrimination prohibited by Title IX
GENDER IDENTITY
Transgender athletes • Examples • Keelin Godsey (FTM) - Bates College (D3) Thrower - continued women's throwing in effort to make Olympics, graduated 2006 • Kye Allums (FTM) George Washington University (D1) Basketball - continued women's basketball for 1 year after coming out, graduated 2011 • Schuyler Bailar - Harvard (D1) Swimming - offered scholarship for women's swimming, began to transition before enrolling, scholarship kept, swims for men's team, current freshman.
RECRUITING DEFINITIONS
Unofficial visit • Any visit by you to a college campus paid for by you/your parents. The only expense you may receive from the college is 3 free admissions to a athletics contest. You may make as many unofficial visits as you like and may take those visits at any time. The only time you cannot talk with a coach during an official visit is during a dead period • Verbal commitment • This phrase is used to describe a college-bound student athletes commitment to a school before s/he signs a national letter of intent. A college bound athlete can announce a verbal commitment at any time. This commitment is NOT binding on either the college bound athlete or the school. Only the signing of the NLI + a financial aid agreement is binding on both parties
SEXUAL ASSAULT & TITLE IX
What are University obligations • Title IX coordinator • Easy, anonymous, and visible reporting structure • Prompt investigation of all reports • Case decided on "preponderance of the evidence" standard to determine the outcome of a complaint, meaning discipline should result if it is more likely than not that discrimination, harassment and/or violence occurred. • Must take immediate action to ensure a victim can continue their education free of ongoing sex discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual violence • Cannot be overly burdensome on victim Baylor
GENDER IDENTITY
• Gender identity: A term that refers to a person's innate and deeply felt psychological identification as a man, woman, or other gender. This may or may not correspond to the sex that they were assigned at birth • Transgender: A term that describes a person whose gender identity does not match the sex that they were assigned at birth. It serves as an umbrella term that includes people who are transitioning male-to-female (MTF; transgender women) and female-to-male (FTM; transgender men). It can also include those who transcend the gender binary and who may identify as genderqueer. It does not designate how an individual has or has not altered their bodies • Cisgender: A term that describes a person whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth
CURRENT TOPICS & TITLE IX
• LGBT Protections • OCR & department of education have released policy interpretations that Title IX protects Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender students • Discrimination on the basis of LGBT is considered to be on the basis of gender norms and thus fall under Title IX protections • Rescinded under Trump - currently in courts • Transgender access to facilities and athletics
COMPLIANCE OFFICE
• One of the most important but often resented areas • Primary responsibility is to protect the university • Internal function in the athletics department with an external reporting obligation
RECRUITING DEFINITIONS
• Prospective student athlete • You become a prospective student athlete when • You start 9th grade classes • Before your 9th grade year, a college gives you any financial aid or other benefits that the college does not provide to students generally • Quiet period • The college coach may not have any in-person contact with you off of the college campus. The coach may not watch you play or visit your high school during this period. You may visit campus. A coach may write or call you .
TRANSGENDER ACCESS TO ATHLETICS
• Trans students allowed access to restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity • NCAA policy • Transmen: can continue participating on women's team until they begin hormone therapy. Can begin playing men's at any time • Transwomen: Can continue participating on men's team. To play on women's team, must have completed one year of hormone therapy. • 1 year of hormone therapy has been shown to negate all physical advantages of men's elevated testosterone levels. • Why is there a gender difference in at what stage during transition a player can play on the women's vs men's team. • Social norms of masculine superiority in sport/assumed benefits of testosterone.