Under pressure from a continuing investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Ball State University has agreed to bring its sports teams into compliance with Title IX in 10 areas, including budgeting, recruitment, and equipment.
The university also pledged to investigate the departures of several coaches of women’s teams over the last five years, which some gender-equity experts say they have never seen in an agreement of this kind.
Officials at Ball State, a 21,000-student public university in Muncie, Ind., which plays in the NCAA’s Division I, signed a letter in August promising to comply with Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at institutions that receive federal money.
A dialogue about gender equality in Ball State’s athletics program was under way before the Office for Civil Rights’ investigation began, in 2008. According to a 2007 report on gender equity by the university’s Athletic Committee, which was approved by the University Senate and Jo Ann M. Gora, the president of Ball State, five coaches of women’s teams complained at a 2006 committee meeting about a lack of money. One coach said she needed uniforms for her team, while another said she did not have enough money to feed her players while they were on the road. As part of that report, Tom Collins, the university’s athletic director, came up with a five-year plan that had many of the same goals as the agreement with the Office for Civil Rights.
Ball State says its agreement with the Education Department was a way to resolve the federal investigation, not an admission that the university had violated any aspects of Title IX. In a letter that accompanied the resolution agreement, the Office for Civil Rights said it found parts of the university’s athletics program to be equitable. For example, Ball State scheduled games and practices and offered tutoring without discriminating by gender.
The Office for Civil Rights’ investigation involved an on-campus visit in 2009 in which Education Department officials toured facilities and interviewed athletes, coaches, and athletics administrators. Though the agreement marks the end of this phase of the investigation, the office will continue to monitor the university.
Mr. Collins said via e-mail that Ball State was committed to complying with Title IX. He also said that no retaliatory or unfair coaching changes had been made. Gender-equity experts say they have seen an increase in the number of investigations of college-athletics programs under the Obama administration. During President Bush’s presidency, there was a span of five years where the Office for Civil Rights investigated only one athletics program for Title IX compliance. Russlynn H. Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights, told The Chronicle in April that her office planned to announce three new investigations of Title IX compliance in collegiate sports by September.