Dartmouth officials say the College continues to provide equitable resources to its female athletes despite a federal ruling on Wednesday that redefines the application of Title IX, a federal regulation prohibiting gender discrimination in activities at schools that receive federal funding.
In 1991, Brown University stripped two men's teams and two women's teams of varsity status. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Pettine ruled on Wednesday that in doing so, Brown violated Title IX by not providing its female undergraduates with an adequate number of athletic opportunities.
Pettine said although Brown offers 16 sports for men and 16 for women, the percentage of female athletes at the school was not consistent with the percentage of female students.
At Brown, 38.1 percent of its athletes are women and about 51 of its students are women.
At Dartmouth, females have virtually the same number of opportunities as males in athletics, Athletic Director Dick Jaeger said.
"Dartmouth has constantly been making the ratio of male to female athletes more equal," he said.
The Dartmouth College Athletic Department projects that by 1996, 45.1 percent of participating athletes in varsity sports will be female. About 47 percent of undergraduates are female, according to the College Registrar.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights set up a three-pronged test to determine whether schools are in compliance with Title IX, and Associate Director of Athletics Josie Harper said Dartmouth passes all three tests.
Under the three-pronged test, educational institutions are considered to be in compliance with Title IX if a school's ratio of female to male athletes is "substantially proportionate" to the ratio of women to men undergraduates, or the school continually expands its intercollegiate athletic program to meet women's developing interests and abilities or the school's current program "fully and effectively accommodates" women's interests and abilities.
Harper said Dartmouth has continued to meet the needs and interests of its interested athletes. For example, the women's volleyball team achieved fully-funded varsity status this year, while the men's volleyball team was lowered to club status.
The College has 16 fully-funded varsity men's teams and 15 fully-funded varsity women's teams. There will be 16 fully-funded women's teams when softball becomes a fully-funded varsity sport this fall. The College also has two co-ed varsity teams.
"We have been showing good faith and good intentions by continually moving in the direction of evenness of opportunity for the men and the women," Jaeger said.
Football and Title IX
One of the major reasons for the discrepancy between the percentage of female students and the percentage of female athletes is the existence of varsity football, a sport that provides opportunities for males but has no female counterpart.
Football Coach John Lyons said if football were exempted from Title IX rules, the numbers would more accurately reflect the opportunities for male and female athletes.
Between varsity and junior-varsity, the football program carries about 125 men, Lyons said.
According to Lyons, the American Football Coaches Association has considered asking to have football exempted from Title IX rules, which he said he thinks "makes a lot of sense."
Jaeger said the football program does not throw off the numbers too dramatically.
"We have a large number of men participating in football, and this means we need a number of teams on the other side of the ledger that takes up the same number of athletes," he said.
Other coaches praised the College for its continued efforts to comply with Title IX.
Men's ice hockey Coach Roger Demment said it makes "perfect sense" for colleges to provide equal opportunities for males and females in all areas, including athletics.
Brown and Title IX
Brown University demoted four teams -- men's golf, men's water polo, women's volleyball, and women's gymnastics -- from varsity to club-varsity status in April 1991.
One year later, the two demoted women's teams, represented by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, filed a class-action lawsuit against Brown, claiming the decision had discriminated against women and therefore was a violation of Title IX.
The trial began in September, 1994.
On Wednesday, Pettine ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing with the claim that Brown failed all three parts of the three-pronged test.
Robert Reichley, executive vice president of Brown, wrote in a statement that the University found the ruling "extremely disappointing."
Reichley wrote, "Nothing in the court's opinion leads me to believe that the University's understanding of Title IX's requirements is incorrect -- particularly regarding the central issue of proportionality."
Brown plans to appeal the decision in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.
