Closing Arguments Heard in Brown Title IX Suit

On one side is a group of women athletes demanding equal opportunity. On the other, an Ivy League University insists equal opportunity is exactly what it is giving. At stake, the definition of sexual discrimination and equal opportunity in an era where "gender" is a loaded word.

Yesterday, closing arguments were made in U.S. District Court in a class action sexual discrimination suit brought against Brown University in April 1992. The women athletes contest Brown's compliance to Title IX, a 1972 federal law prohibiting gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds. In particular, the law specifies that schools must offer equal athletic opportunities to women.

The decision will not be released for at least two months.

Through thousands of pages of testimony and more than a dozen witness spanning three years, the plantiffs tried to demonstrate that Brown failed three tests of Title IX compliance as administered by the Office of Civil Rights: it does not provide participation opportunities in numbers substantially proportionate to the undergraduate enrollment; Brown does not have a history of program expansions, and Brown's present program does not fully and effectively accomodate the interests and abilities of female students.

Brown offers 15 women's varsity sports, well above the average of 8.3 for NCAA Division I schools, and has 324 female athletes, three times the national average. There are only 13 variety men's terms but more than 600 male athletes. The ratio of miles to females as of Dec. 5 was 60.33 percent to 39.67 percent.

"Brown's athletic program for everyone, particularly women, is one of the biggest in the country," said Mark Nickel of the Brown News Office. Brown has women's teams in every sport offered by at least one percent of Division I schools in the East.

"The last time I checked a few years ago, "the only school in the country with a more extensive program was Harvard," Nickel said.

Harvard's program supports 20 varsity women's sports and 21 men's sports. Harvard has 855 male athletes and 524 female athletes, a ratio of 62.1 percent to 37.9 percent.

Varsity male sports at Harvard received $2.2 million in administrative funding as of 1993, about twice that of women's sports. Male sports at Harvard also receive the bulk of the funding from alumni donations.

Harvard's sports information department declined to comment on the suit.

Brown's attorneys attempted a novel approach in defining Title IX compliance, arguing that women's participation rates are lower because of lower interest. To support their claim, they drew heavily on statistics--sources used included admissions data, much of which was ruled inadmissible, and SAT surveys.

In linking participation with interest, Brown's attorneys hope to show that women simply choose not to use available resources. But some women athletes see that logic as faulty.

"If there is no program to be interested in, who are you going to going to attact? I think it's difficult to attract women athletes if you don't have a strong women's athletes program," said senior Genevieve Chelius, captain of varsity lacrosse and soccer teams. "People who know that it is bad don't go there," she said.

Already, the suit has had impact at Brown, where a partial settlement had been reached these days into the trial, and elsewhere. "The suit has done an excellent job in improving the situation at Brown," Chelius said, "And I think this sends a message to other universities."