1. Gender Employment Discrimination in Intercollegiate Sport: A Review of Case Law.
- Author
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Sabin, Joseph, Goldsmith, Andrew L., Fletcher, Caroline G., Stokowski, Sarah, and Carroll, Michael S.
- Subjects
SEX discrimination ,TITLE IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ,COLLEGE sports ,CIVIL Rights Act of 1964 ,JUDGE-made law ,WOMEN'S rights ,EDUCATIONAL equalization ,COACHING (Athletics) - Abstract
Gender discrimination within collegiate sport has made it difficult for women to obtain coaching and administrative roles. Federal legislation – including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 – has helped combat gender discrimination in many facets of society, including sport. Although significant progress has been made regarding athletic opportunities, which has increased sport participation rates among girls and women, a wide disparity persists in the areas of coaching and athletic administration. This paper strives to explore employment discrimination in intercollegiate athletics through a review of relevant legal cases. Keywords: equal pay, gendeathletics, Tit In the United States of America (U.S.), laws (e.g., Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972) have been put into place to combat gender-based discrimination. While gender discrimination exists in many professions, it particularly is salient within the sport setting, largely because sport historically is a male-dominated space. Women consistently are held to different expectations (i.e., double standards; Buzuvis, 2010) and are not paid equally to their male counterparts (Bass, 2016), ultimately leading this population to be overlooked for a variety of positions due to their gender (Hardin & Whiteside, 2012). Within the intercollegiate sport setting, specifically among National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) member institutions, the lack of female representation is staggering. In 2016, 59.8% of head coaches for women’s sports were male (Wilson, 2016). In 2017-18, women accounted for 40.1% of head coaching jobs in Division I for women’s sports, but only 4.0% of female head coaches were represented within Division I men’s programming (Lapchick, 2019). Considering men (in both men’s and women’s intercollegiate sport) hold most head coaching positions, steps need to be taken to ensure that employment opportunities, pay, and benefits are equitable for women Arnold et al. (2015) urged sport educators to teach the next generation of students to challenge male hegemonic ideology and celebrate the women who have gone where previous women were not allowed nor welcome. “These types of negative cultural norms in sport journalism and broadcasting must be stopped and changed so that true gender equality can be achieved one day soon†(Arnold et al., 2015, p. 41). Similarly, Weatherford et al. (2018) recommended that male sport leaders become allies for women in sport, promoting women into positions of power to reflect society. Refusing to support women leads to gender discrimination, stymies progress, and continues to marginalize women (Weatherford et al., 2018). Given that the NCAA (2020) strives for “gender equity among…athletics department staff†(p. 2), steps must be taken to better understand gender discrimination in the collegiate sport space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022