As the U.S. Women’s World Cup soccer team prepares to take on China in the highly anticipated quarterfinal matchup today, there’s renewed attention here at home on just how big the gaps are in high school when it comes to sports teams for girls and boys.
According to a new state-by-state ranking by the National Women’s Law Center, 28% of co-ed public high schools with interscholastic sports programs have what are considered to be “large” gender disparities in access to team sports.
The organization, using 2011-12 data from the U.S. Department of Education, looked at the gulf between the number of spots on teams allocated to girls and the percentage of students who are girls in 16,000 public co-ed high schools with sports programs across the country.
For example, if 48% of students at a school are girls but girls get only 32% of spots on teams, that school has a gender equity gap of 16 points.
Schools with gaps of 10 percentage points or higher were found to have “large gender equity gaps” and are probably not complying with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits any school from receiving federal funding from discrimination based on sex, the National Women’s Law Center said.
“When you are talking about a 10 percentage point gap … the typical school would have to add 91 additional opportunities for girls” to bring the gap to zero, said Neena Chaudhry, the center’s senior counsel and director of equal opportunities in athletics.
“We have not seen any schools that have 10 percentage point gaps that are in compliance with Title IX,” Chaudhry said, adding that the courts have ruled that gaps as small as 3% are “not good enough.”
The women’s advocacy organization released its rankings this week on the 43rd anniversary of Title IX.
“I think it just shows how much work schools still have to do in terms of focusing on this issue, prioritizing girls’ sports,” said Chaudhry, who said it remains an issue not just from kindergarten through 12th grade but also in college and in professional sports, including the Women’s World Cup.
“How can our women be playing on artificial turf when it’s so obvious that that’s unfair to them and the men don’t have to do that?” she asked.
The biggest offender in the National Women’s Law Center analysis is Georgia, which ranks at the bottom of the list, 51st in terms of female athletic equality. It ranked at the bottom of the list when the organization conducted a similar analysis in 2012 (PDF).
In the most recent report, 66% of the schools examined in Georgia were found to have gender equity gaps of 10 points or higher.
“We value sports and all other extracurricular activities and encourage Georgia’s local school systems to provide all students with an opportunity to participate,” Matt Cardoza, director of communications for the Georgia Department of Education, wrote in an email statement.
Cardoza also said the state board of education does not have “direct control” over the issue since it is more a local issue in terms of which sports local school districts provide.
But to that, Chaudhry said that states have independent Title IX responsibilities and “should be overseeing their schools’ compliance.”
Georgia is also one of a few states that does collect athletics equity data, so it “should be using it to help schools achieve equity,” she added.
Other places found to have more than 50% of co-ed public high schools with gender equity gaps of 10 percentage points or more include South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and the District of Columbia.
“These statistics are shocking, and people don’t really know about them,” said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, director of research and policy analysis for the National Women’s Law Center.
While under federal law, colleges are required to reveal how many women and men are playing on sports teams and how much money is being spent on athletic programs, public high schools are not required to reveal that information. The National Women’s Law Center is pushing for a federal bill that would change that, mandating that high schools across the country reveal data for their sports programs both by race and gender.
Of particular concern are girls of color, who are “receiving the fewest opportunities to play school sports than any other group of girls or boys,” Chaudhry said. The disparities were detailed in a research report released by the National Women’s Law Center (PDF) this year.
“We really need to focus on girls of color who are being left behind.”
As the U.S. women play for another World Cup title, the debate over when top-tier women athletes will get the same respect as men has taken center stage and in some cases gone viral.
In a segment this week on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Meyers and Amy Poehler hilariously took a Sports Illustrated NFL writer to task after he tweeted that women’s sports are “not worth watching.”
“Really!?!” the comic duo repeatedly said, bringing up the power of tennis champ Serena Williams and winning goals in the women’s World Cup. Poehler ridiculed Sports Illustrated for how its annual swimsuit edition is “dedicated entirely to women who are not in sports.”
“Unless you think it’s a sport to cover both boobs with one arm,” she joked.
Even before that video ricocheted across the Internet, the writer, Andy Benoit, apologized via Twitter: “My sincere apologies for last night’s senseless tweets. I got carried away responding to playful ribbing … and, in my stupidity, overcompensated by saying something ignorant and extreme. 100% mistake on my part, for which I’m deeply sorry.”
Not too long ago, around March Madness, I wrote a story wondering when women’s sports would get the same attention, money and buzz that men’s sports programs get.
Many people responded on social media, saying that men’s sports, such as men’s basketball, are more fun to watch. I anticipate a similar response to this story from people who might argue that the reason there are gaps in high school sports programs is because more boys want to play sports. It’s a matter of supply and demand, they’ll argue. If more women wanted to play sports, there would be more teams.
“Title IX was passed to combat that very stereotype, because that’s what people said all along and why girls didn’t have the opportunities,” Chaudhry said. “Girls weren’t interested; they shouldn’t play. It was too dangerous, and I think history has shown if you build it, they will come.”
Part of what schools are supposed to be doing under Title IX, and often are not doing, according to Chaudhry, is regularly assessing girls’ interest, looking to see what sports girls are playing and asking girls what they want to play that is currently not being offered.
For any parents who believe there are gender disparities at their child’s school, Chaudhry recommends first going straight to the principal or athletic director and asking for change. Grouping together with other parents can also be effective, she said.
“A lot of times, that really does make a difference,” she said. “So I think awareness is key and just sort of stepping up and saying to your school, ‘Look, this isn’t fair, and this is what the law requires.’ ” (The National Women’s Law Center has a fact sheet on how to help calculate an individual school’s participation gap.)
So as we’re cheering on the American women today, let’s keep in mind how the playing field for women and men in high school sports is still not equal.
Reducing the gap is not just the right thing to do. It’s required under the law.
What do you think it will take to get gender equity in high school sports? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter @kellywallacetv or CNN Parents on Facebook.
