Brown's Title IX battles finally end

Brown agrees to strict standards for women's athletic programs. Ending a six-year legal battle, Brown recently settled with the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a Washington, D.C. law firm, on a case regarding federal Title IX statutes. Title IX, which has generated significant debate since its inception in 1972, is a law which prohibits sex discrimination in college athletics. TLPJ sued Brown in 1993, saying the university was in violation of Title IX when it cut funding from its women's gymnastics and volleyball teams. In 1995, a district judge ruled in favor of TLPJ. Brown appealed the ruling, and a lengthy appeals process nearly brought the case before the Supreme Court. The two sides then decided to start negotiations. The agreement, which was reached over the last year, stipulates that Brown must keep the percentage of its women athletes within 3.5 percentage points of the percentage of women students enrolled at the university. However, under the terms of the agreement, if Brown cuts funding for a women's program or adds a men's team without adding a women's team, the percentage will shrink to 2.25 percent. "The 3.5 percent at least gives the athletic director and coaches a clear indication of what is acceptable to courts and both sides in this case," Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Bureau, said . By keeping the number of women athletes "substantially proportionate" to the number of women in the student body, Brown meets one of the requirements of Title IX. It could have, however, met Title IX requirements in two other ways. According to guidelines issued by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in 1979, schools may also meet Title IX by offering all sports that women want to play or by continually expanding women athletics. Despite these two other options, Brown chose to fulfill the "substantially proportionate" rule. "That was the crucial philosophical point in the university's case, that schools need to be in charge of their own programs," Nickel said. While Brown University is in charge of its own programs, women athletes must be as well-represented as their male counterparts -- a stipulation that becomes ensured by the recent settlement.

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