Title IX was intended to close the gender gap in college athletics But schools are rigging the no's.

[MichMan]

Fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the landmark law banning sex discrimination in education, colleges and universities are circumventing its intent by manipulating athletic rosters to appear more balanced than they are. By packing their women’s teams with extra players who never compete, double- and triple-counting women while undercounting men and even classifying male practice players as women, schools across the nation collectively conjured the illusion of thousands more female athletic opportunities, a USA TODAY investigation found.

At Florida State University, for example, more than half of the 66 women on its indoor track and field team never competed indoors. The school simply counted all its outdoor track athletes twice. The University of Wisconsin claimed to have 165 athletes on its women’s rowing roster even though more than a third of them never raced for the school. Some of the women quit before the regular season even started. In addition to Wisconsin, the University of Alabama, the University of Tennessee and Michigan each reported triple-digit women’s rowing teams. Alabama reported 122 rowers despite its conference championships allowing for 28.

At the University of Michigan, 29 athletes on the 43-player women’s basketball roster were actually men who signed up to practice with the team. Michigan had the highest count of any school in the analysis, reporting 36 practice players across three women's sports. The 29 on its women's basketball team was more than double its number of actual female basketball players.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Michigan women's basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico said the high number ensured her team would never be short practice players because of scheduling conflicts. When Barnes Arico was asked if she knew the athletic department counted the men toward its women’s teams, a school spokesperson, Sarah VanMetre, interrupted and ended the interview.

[link:https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/title-ix-was-intended-to-close-the-gender-gap-in-college-athletics-but-schools-are-rigging-the-numbers/ar-AAXKu2D?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=691d72ba0cab418a81b65b8b19741c65|

[jmowreader]

1. Before 2010 it was even worse

Cheerleading, believe it or not, is considered a sport. Before 2010, schools were allowed to count all their cheerleaders as female athletes for the purposes of Title IX. At the present time, if a school has a Stunt Cheer squad which competes in cheer competitions it can be counted for Title IX purposes but regular sideline cheerleaders cannot be.

You of course know the 800-pound gorilla in the room: the 105 to 120 players, plus student trainers, equipment managers and every other student working with this group, on a college football team. If you've got 150 total students involved in the football program and you can't find enough women willing to play sports to offset the football team, book cooking will necessarily follow.

[MichMan]

4. Cheerleading is a sport

The number of athletes on the football teams does need to be offset somehow.

That being said, the examples listed do seem to be overly egregious ways to try and do so. 120 players on the women's rowing teams or 2/3 of the women's basketball team actually being men is patently absurd. I figured there was some creative accounting involved, but nothing like this.

The NCAA apparently says it's OK.

[Walleye]

2. This is why I get so pissed when these right wingers start talking about trans women in sports

They go on and on about protecting women sports we all know they are against them

[MichMan]

3. Very few, if any, of the colleges mentioned are bastions of RW thinking.

If you think about it, trans athletes on the men's team wouldn't count as women for Title IX purposes