JMU: The Lastest IX/Football Victim

JMU ENACTS PROPORTIONALITY PLAN TO COMPLY WITH TITLE IX

Press conference attendees Rose, Damico, Moorman, Rivers, Bourne (l to r)

September 29, 2006

HARRISONBURG — James Madison University's Board of Visitors voted today to approve a plan to bring the JMU Athletics program into compliance with Title IX.

The plan will take effect July 1, 2007, when the following varsity teams will be eliminated:

Men's

Archery

Cross Country

Gymnastics

Indoor Track

Outdoor Track

Swimming

Wrestling

Women's

Archery

Fencing

Gymnastics

With 28 varsity teams, the JMU Athletics program ties for the rank of seventh in terms of the number of teams among all 327 Division I schools nationally.

"The JMU Athletics program is unusually large for a public university of our size," said Joseph Damico, rector of the JMU Board of Visitors. "With so many teams, we faced an insurmountable challenge coming into compliance with Title IX. Fundamentally, that is why the Board voted today for this plan."

The proportionality requirements of Title IX mandate that collegiate athletics programs mirror each school's undergraduate population in terms of gender. As of the fall semester 2006, JMU's proportions place it fundamentally out of compliance with federal law:

Overall Enrollment

Female 61%

Male 39%

Athletics Participation

Female 50.7%

Male 49.3%

Jeff Bourne, JMU athletics director, said, "We explored every avenue in search of an alternative to this action. Lamar Daniel, a well-known consultant on Title IX compliance, has worked closely with us and he believes that this plan is our most viable alternative for reaching compliance with Title IX."

Once this plan is fully implemented, total participation in athletics will move to 61 percent female and 39 percent male, in alignment with current student enrollment. The university will then have 18 intercollegiate sports:

Men's

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Golf

Soccer

Tennis

Women's

Basketball

Cross Country

Field Hockey

Golf

Lacrosse

Soccer

Softball

Swimming

Tennis

Track, Indoor

Track, Outdoor

Volleyball

This decision affects 144 student-athletes currently participating in these sports, as well as three full-time and eight part-time coaches.

"Now that the Board has voted to enact this plan, our main concern is with our affected student-athletes and coaches," said Bourne. "We are taking great care to preserve the financial guarantees already made to our student-athletes. If you are a student-athlete on an affected team and you are receiving a scholarship, you will continue to receive that scholarship until you graduate."

Currently, eight students on the rosters of the 10 affected teams receive a total of $13,500 in scholarships. Access to sports-medicine and academic-advising programs also will be available to them. Any affected student-athletes who decide to transfer to another program will be provided with full assistance regarding the transfer process. Affected coaches will receive severance packages appropriate to the university's policies and procedures.

All of the financial resources recovered from the implementation of this plan will be redirected to provide the full complement of NCAA scholarships for women's golf, tennis and swimming. Partial scholarship funding will return to men's golf and tennis, with a plan to enhance to full funding by 2011.

To view online the press conference held Friday afternoon to announce the plan, go to

http://media.jmu.edu/special/8_924.asx

. Attending are JMU President Linwood Rose, Board of Visitors Rector Joseph Damico, Associate Athletic Director Sheila Moorman, BOV member Wharton Rivers Jr., and Athletic Director Jeff Bourne.

That is so sad. My condolences to everyone involved with the program. It happened to me when I was in college and I know it hurts.

Any emails you could send explaining the LetsRun.com prospective on this crisis in our sport would be greatly appreciated. I've included an email list that will ensure that the entire James Madison Athletic Department will hear your opinion. Serious emails only please.

roselh@jmu.edu

,

bournejt@jmu.edu

,

moormasa@jmu.edu

,

brown4jm@jmu.edu

,

carterlc@jmu.edu

,

edmondjb@jmu.edu

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johns2ck@jmu.edu

,

kustertj@jmu.edu

,

langrinl@jmu.edu

,

mercerkc@jmu.edu

,

moshiemj@jmu.edu

,

moyerskl@jmu.edu

,

lam2tm@jmu.edu

,

polglagh@jmu.edu

,

snovertr@jmu.edu

,

soenksra@jmu.edu

,

starketc@jmu.edu

,

whitekj@jmu.edu

,

dudleycm@jmu.edu

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larsonje@jmu.edu

,

michaegl@jmu.edu

,

warnerka@jmu.edu

,

wisecams@jmu.edu

,

huffmavl@jmu.edu

,

mercerkc@jmu.edu

,

rhodesdb@jmu.edu

,

johns2ck@jmu.edu

,

wrightsl@jmu.edu

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yeagerhl@jmu.edu

,

brown4jm@jmu.edu

,

dulldl@jmu.edu

that sucks. JMU has been a very respectable non-scholarship program.

As much as I hate to say this, they were gunning for this before I even left high school.

I'm sorry to hear this news. Yet another example of a bean counter AD that has no concept of sports. He was never an athlete, only a numbers guy from the accounting department at Virginia Tech before arriving here in Harrisonburg. There will be no fight. The fight needed to be fought well before this announcement.

If the AD is from V-Tech expect more money to be put into football and get criminals out of Chesapeake,Va. to play and be arrested. The academic types will hate it but they alumni will love it.

I would disagree to some extent that the AD is clueless. Everyone who spoke at the press conference made it very clear that these cuts were made strictly for Title IX proportionality [ie Quota] purposes. All to often schools make cuts that are clearly for Title IX Quota purposes but shy away from admitting it, (eg Towson 2004). By making it abundantly clear that they were forced by federal law to make the cuts to meet a gender based quota it gives the rest of America the opportunity to demand from there elected officials to have the proportionality law removed from the books. As Jessica Gavora correctly and succinctly states in her book Leveling the Playing Field, Title IX is a quota system that would not be accepted any where else in America, and it shouldn't be accepted here either.

You like shifting blame do ya ?

Well I would have rather seen the AD actually keep the programs and fight the impending long and expensive lawsuit. But the fact is that the lawsuit was going to come at some point and the only way to avoid the lawsuit is to meet the proportionality quota (see the Brown Decision). The AD has to run an entire athletic department, and the best interest of the entire athletic department is to not spend large sums of money fighting in the judicial system a problem that desperately needs addressed in the legislature.

I am not being sarcastic when I say that I love America, am proud to be an American, and believe we're the best country on earth. That being said:

How in the world you could come up with something as idiotic as Title IX is beyond me. How a court would accept it as valid boggles the mind. Some of the court-ordered craziness we live with is so insane that you couldn't make it up.

I also want to say that it's too bad JMU students are being denied the opportunity to compete there. If I remember correctly JMU was a really good cross program. I feel especially bad for their current athletes. Best of luck to you all.

p.s. A special thank you to the Brown Women's soccer team!

Once football started getting some attention it was bound to happen.

what has been done in the past when a program has been cut? has anyone done anything that was at all effective? i know that jmu had the sos (save our sports) campain a few years ago that kept the program around. anything similar?

I understand the AD sent someone to drive up to Paul Short to day to inform the guys they had there of this decision. Probably put a bit of a downer on their day.

You have my sympathy, for I too am a victim

jmurunner wrote:

Once this plan is fully implemented, total participation in athletics will move to 61 percent female and 39 percent male, in alignment with current student enrollment.

The problem with this alignment towards the enrollment numbers is that the number of men and women that want to compete in college isn't the same. It's a fact that more men compete in sports and it's not because of chances to compete. Today women have every bit the chance to participate and they do participate at a far higher level then they used to, but there is still a large gap in participation. Before these cuts the numbers were 50-50. As is, that doesn't accurately represent the participation numbers of the sexes in high school and before. Changing it to comply with the enrollment numbers is simply insane and absurd.

/I'm all for women competing in sports and would love for as many women to want to compete as men, but it's simply not so.

//I also hate that Title IX, an incredibly important piece of legislation, has been so poorly implemented by so many colleges. For all the good Title IX has done, it has a done a great deal of bad, also.

///JMU was once a very solid men's team, I'm sad to see them go, and I wish all the members of the team the best in their running careers at other colleges.

What is really behind these cuts allegedly due to title IX?

Title IX was enacted over 30 years ago and these schools are just deciding to comply now? Why now if they've been able to get away with it for over 30 years???

Does it have more to due with cost cutting than equality?

JMU has only 39% guys? WTF? I know of former all-women's colleges that have a higher ratio than that. Sounds like an admissions problem.

Of the 10 sports there's only 8 scholarships between them, so I doubt it's really about cost cutting.

I normally see Title IX as the scapegoat ADs use to justify cutting programs, when it's usually about having more funding for basketball/football, but in this case it really looks like a clear-cut Title IX case. How they've existed so long so far out of whack, that's the real question.

This might be a case where I won't write my normal nasty letter to the University like I've done in the past, but write my legislator.