College Sports Must Be Fully Integrated by 2018
Washington D.C. - Following a
unanimous recommendation by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional
Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today
announced the full and complete implementation of Title IX. It will end all
gender-based sports and each conference will continue to move forward with a
plan to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to college athletics.
The change is intended to ensure that the best-qualified and
most-capable person, regardless of sex, are allowed to play the sport of their
choice for their chosen college.
“If members of that college can meet the
qualifications for a job, then they should have the right to serve,
regardless of creed, color, gender or sexual orientation,” Secretary Duncan
said.
In a statement released following the announcement, President
Barack Obama praised the decision.
Duncan, laying out his plan, stated, “Any school that takes any
form of money from the government will need to cancel all gender-specific
sports and have fully integrated teams by 2018." During the press
conference, Secretary Duncan was backed up by representatives from each state's
education department.
As part of the plan, each school needs to conduct studies on
their sports' specific requirements. If those requirements preclude a certain
gender then they will have to submit a report to the Department of Education
(DOE) to justify why they are necessary.
College football
Former Adm. William McRaven, architect of the May 2011 military
raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, has been assigned as the first director of
the U.S. Sports Oversight Committee (USSOCOM) and is spearheading an effort to
get more women and minorities to play sports.
"Women make up 56 percent of the total public-university
attendance, and yet they make up zero percent of the football teams.
I think we need to grow that number,” the former four-star Admiral told an
audience of alumni.
McRaven told me during a recent interview, that he was unsure what
the expanded number would grow to. But he did note the current ratio of men to
women playing football is putting the teams at a disadvantage.
“Inherently, I know I need more females on the field," he
said. "Females have already risen through the coaching and
support-related elements of college football. But they have not
been able to break into the operational side of actually playing."
The DOE must first draw up “gender-neutral” training and
operations standards for all sport teams, and officials said they were due to
be turned in by September, 2015. Those training and operations standards will
put physical-fitness requirements for male and female candidates on
equal footing.
McRaven said, "Women athletes have already played a keyrole on the field, standing alongside male athletes in some of the most
difficult games of the year. The all-female units, known as cheerleaders,
played a key role in many conference championships. We saw the great work that
they did while working alongside college and even professional football
teams." He went on to say he was working within the state
bureaus to establish a new path for female members of universities based
closely on the female field-hockey teams.
Some of the new rules to be implemented:
- Hire coaching
“advisers” from the women’s studies program to oversee recruitment,
try-outs, training, and management decisions.
- If no women make
it to the team as starters, the government will conduct an audit of every
decision made throughout the process.
- During the
season, the teams are required to live in open bunk rooms to build team
cohesion and unity. (Schools are required to provide separate bathing and
locker-room facilities for the female team members)
- Male members of
the team are required to complete 40 hours of sexual-harassment and
rape-prevention training each season.
Secretary Duncan explained the outline to full implementation:
“First, we are going to change how college sports run their conferences."
He went on to explain that all colleges receiving public money will
have to abide by these rules, but private universities will be exempt. “To make
it fair, teams in each conference will only play like schools during the
season. Public schools will play public schools, private will play private.
They will only meet when it comes to the conference championship. Then the best
teams from each side will come together to decide the conference title.”
Senator Barbara Boxer praised the move, saying, “This is a great
moment for feminism and gender equality.” As she was leaving, not
realizing her mic was on, she leaned over and could be heard saying, “Maybe the
public conferences could just use flags instead of hitting each other. That
seems more fair.”
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(Featured Image Courtesy: MyGarnerFamily.blogspot.com)
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