Brown U., athletes settle Title IX suit

Women athletes at Brown University -- usually found on the basketball or tennis courts -- have finally gotten their day in a court of law. For the first time since April 1992, when members of the women's gymnastics team sued Brown for violating Title IX of the Education Amendments, their case is being "heard on its merits," said Brown News Bureau Director Mark Nickel. Title IX states that "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 program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." Essentially, it mandates gender equity in varsity intercollegiate athletic programs. All eyes at the University are on the case at Brown because the University is also facing a Title IX complaint, stemming from alleged inequalities in male and female coaches' salaries, along with team facilities, equipment and medical support. A partial settlement in the case against Brown was reached Wednesday. It covers the majority of issues involved, such as team coaching, funding, and facilities access. The terms of the proposed agreement are "intended to insure continuing compatibility of the men's and women's varsity programs on an overall basis," court documents state. Lynette Labinger, the gymnasts' lawyer, told the Associated Press that the agreement "will establish Brown as a model for gender equality in the treatment and support of athletes." The agreement, however, does not address Brown's compliance or noncompliance with provisions of Title IX. For this reason, Nickel said, the trial is expected to continue for another three weeks. The dispute leading up to the trial began in the spring of 1991, when Brown faced a $1.6 million deficit. In response to this shortfall, Brown President Vartan Gregorian instituted a hiring freeze and slashed budgets across campus -- except for undergraduate financial aid and library acquisitions. Gregorian took approximately $75,000 from Brown's Department of Physical Education and Athletics, placing the men's water polo and golf teams and the women's volleyball and gymnastics teams on "unfunded varsity" status. The new status did not change the teams' schedules, opponents or opportunities for post-season play, but made them self-supporting entities. "The athletes affected at the time were 60 percent male and 40 percent female, the same [percentage] as the student body ratio," Nickel said. But by April 1992, the gymnasts charge, women were "under-represented" in the Brown athletic program, constituting 50 percent of the student body but only 40 percent of athletes on campus. Although the Brown women's gymnastics team is once again a fully-funded varsity sport, members' allegations of unequal treatment of male and female athletes remain, forming the backbone of the present case. Nickel said the most pressing questions still to be decided are those of proportionality and accommodation -- whether Brown is obliged to maintain a strict correlation between the number of female students in the student body and the percentage of athletes who are women, and whether Brown must support equal numbers of athletic programs for men and women. "The point the University makes is that where interests and abilities differ, you would expect the opportunities to differ," he added, citing statistics that indicate that at Brown, men outnumber women eight to one in intramural sports, and three to one in club sports. Present Brown Athletic Department policies are not the subject of the trial, Nickel said. He added that participation of female Brown students in varsity athletics exceeds the average for large, Division I schools across the nation by a wide margin. "[Brown] has always maintained that there is no discrimination based on gender in the athletic program," Nickel said yesterday. "We're doing far more than an outfit of our size and budget can reasonably be expected to do." Brown Athletic Director David Roach was not available for comment on the settlement yesterday, and his office referred all calls to Nickel.