Two women's teams that complained to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights about gender inequity in Dartmouth athletics will gain full varsity status and receive full funding within the next 18 months, the College announced Tuesday.
The decision to provide full support for the women's volleyball and softball teams will cost the College about $40,000 a year, according to both teams. Currently softball is a club sport and volleyball has unfunded varsity status.
A federal investigation that began last April after the softball team complained the College violated Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is still underway. Title IX prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of gender in any of its programs or activities.
The decision to add two new varsity women's teams will make the total number of women varsity teams equal to men's.
By the 1995-96 season, the College will sponsor 16 varsity men's and women's teams, and two coed varsities.
Because women comprised only 35 percent of the participants in Dartmouth athletics in 1992-93, and they are expected to comprise 45 percent in 1996-97, the equal number of women's and men's varsity teams puts the College in a favorable position in terms of the Title IX mandate.
College officials say the decision to upgrade the women's teams was not made in response to the softball team's complaint or the letter sent by the volleyball team to the Office of Civil Rights last July, which supported the softball team's allegation that the College does not provide equal opportunities to both sexes.
"I am very pleased," said Maureen Curran '94, the softball team's co-captain. "I think it has been a long time coming, and Dean Pelton did a good job finding the funds for this."
Dean of the College Lee Pelton said his office will help fund the teams along with the athletics department.
The College has always maintained that if it had the appropriate funds it would upgrade the teams.
"We have always aimed at providing equitable athletic opportunities for men and women. The question has always been how do you do that and how do you pay for it," Pelton said.
The financial resources will come from internal reallocation in the Dean of the College's office and administrative restructuring in the athletic department's administration, Pelton said.
The athletic department also expects to receive revenue from increased corporate sponsorship and the capital campaign, specifically the Dartmouth Athletics Endowment fund, which will also go towards funding the two teams, Pelton said.
Pelton said the upgrading of the teams did not come in response to the complaint but in response to the findings of the gender equity committee that issued its report in April. The committee was commissioned in the fall of 1992 by Athletics Director Dick Jaeger to examine the policies of the department with regard to Title IX and gender equity.
The actions of the athletic department go beyond the recommendations of the committee and anything the Office of Civil Rights might have suggested, Pelton said.
Associate College Counsel Sean Gorman said, "If efforts were made simply to respond to the complaints, the department's actions would never have taken the course they did. For example, there was never any complaint made by the volleyball team."
Pelton said the College has informed the Office of Civil Rights of its plans for the softball and volleyball teams.
"We did inform the OCR of the actions we're taking, but we were never in a period where we were negotiating nor were they ever in a period where they were recommending a specific course of action for us," Pelton said.
Jaeger previously said the College denied the softball team varsity status partially because there was a lack of sustained interest in the sport.
But in a Tuesday press release, Jaeger said, "Both sports rank among the four most popular women's sports nationally ... and each has grown in popularity at Dartmouth."
The full funded varsity status will allow both teams to compete in Ivy League and NCAA Division I tournaments.
Pelton attributes the controversy surrounding gender equity in collegiate sports to the ambivalent nature of the law.
"We are and were absolutely in compliance, but compliance in some respects is a matter of opinion," he said. "It is not fully established by the courts or the OCR."
In determining whether schools are in compliance with Title IX, the Office of Civil Rights looks at many factors other than equal number of men's and women's teams. It also looks at the equitability of locker room sizes, travel budgets, practice times, number of coaches, equipment and supplies and publicity.
In addition to the changes announced Tuesday, the College has recently begun funding women's junior varsity programs in field hockey, lacrosse and soccer.
