Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
Term-in-Ology: Gender Bias
Under Division I’s Principle of Gender Equity, Constitution 2.3.3 captures the Association’s official position on gender bias. Specifically, this provision states that “the activities of the Association should be conducted in a manner free of gender bias.”
This Division I principle comes in to focus in light of the well-chronicled disparities in support services and experiences between the recently completed 2021 Division I men’s basketball tournament and the 2021 Division I women’s basketball tournament. An outside law firm was hired by NCAA President Mark Emmert to conduct an independent audit of all sports to “deal with material differences (...) having an impact" on the holding of men's and women's events.
“As part of this effort, we are evaluating the current and past allocation of resources for each championship, in order to have a clear understanding of costs, expenses and revenues,” he continued. Emmert noted the hope is to have preliminary evaluations at the end of April with a final report this summer after all of NCAA championships are completed.
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