The NCAA News has created a section called Gender Equity Q&A. It is a not very well disguised attempt to turn back the modest gains made in the Town Hall meetings on Opportunity in Athletics. It is presented as a "service" to administrators to help guide them in making decisions about dealing with Title IX and Gender Equity. So far the themes have been. "It's not Title IX's fault", "we need to spend more money on women", and "roster management is really a good thing". I can almost guarantee you that more teams will be dropped if this propaganda is allowed to continue. I am asking you to email Gary Brown, Editor of the NCAA News and ask him to take that section out of the paper. His email address is: gbrown@ncaa.org.

Below are the letters that I have written to him. The first was published in the Dec 6 "Letters" section of the NCAA News. The second was just sent. You will get what I am driving at in the second letter. The NCAA News should serve all of it's members. Let your voices be heard. Tell Gary to remove the Gender Equity Q&A from the NCAA News - NOW.

To: Gary Brown - Editor NCAA News
RE: Gender Equity Q&A section in NCAA News

Gary:
In the spirit of providing some clarity to this topic, I would
respectfully like to point out that the response to the first question
is incorrect and misleading. Ms Grant and Ms Judge are mixing their
letters. There are two letters of Clarification. The first written by
Norma Cantu in 1995 made proportionality a "Safe Harbor" and changed the
previous interpretation from equal opportunities to equal participants.
Both of those interpretations of a previously even-handed law forced
Colleges and Universities to even out their numbers. The prohibitive
cost of adding several Women's teams lead to the dropping of Men's
programs. The second letter of Clarification was written in July of
2003(Following the Town Hall meetings on Opportunity in Athletics). It
was that letter (written 8 years later) not the Cantu 1995 letter that
stated that dropping sports was a disfavored practice.
Since the Courts gave deference to the OCR policy interpretations
and Cantu's Letter of Clarification, in fact, for those eight years the
Office of Civil Rights endorsed dropping teams to even out the
proportionality numbers. In fact, many Men's teams were dropped because
of that letter. The fact is; things are better now. But we shouldn't
rewrite history. Those things happened. They hurt Men's sports. Let's
not forget that. The law became a sword that cut Men's sports instead of
a shield that protected opportunities for all.

I include a link to the 1995 Cantu "Letter of Clarification" the
the full text of the 2003 "Dear Colleague" letter

This letter just sent yesterday:

Gary:
I have read with bemusement and bewilderment the Gender Equity Q&A section of the NCAA News. I have reported on some of the answers that I thought that were misleading and or incorrect and you have been generous enough to publish them (Dec 6 issue). But let's get real. This is not a legitimate Question and Answer like "John Jones, Athletic Director at Midtown University asks". Christine Grant and Janet Judge aren't answering questions that are being asked of them but are stating an opinion and then creating a question that leads to it.
Your publication is called NCAA News. One should expect some objectivity. Instead of Question and Answers we get a launching pad for a political agenda. The latest in the Dec 20,2004 issue is a shameful attempt to get more money to women by showing the difference in spending per athlete. It doesn't take rocket science to realize that a sport like Football has equipment costs and medical expenses that are extremely high. Of course all athletes should be treated comparably, but to try and match football costs by equalizing the money spent on other athletes(both women and men) doesn't make sense. And, if the costs were equalized, who do you think will suffer. At first, Male athletes, who, by the way, would be happy with a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a locker and later, because you have shrunk the number of opportunities for males, female athletes.
In addition, instead of illuminating the current legal situation the "experts" insinuate that we should expect more Title IX lawsuits. A look at Christine Grant's own web site:Gender Equity in Sports will show that while there are still lawsuits that the number at the University level has gone down. That's not advice, it's misinformation.
I understand that President Brand needs the support of Women Athletic Administrators to launch his reforms. In fact, I am in favor of almost all of them. Your newspaper has done a fine job of reporting on the reforms and creating a dialogue to discuss them in a constructive way. Gender Equity Q&A is not news. It is not providing accurate information It is not helping. I am not advocating that Ms Grant and Ms Judge be censored, but placed in the proper section of the NCAA News - Opinions.