(In)equity in athletics: U.S. antidiscrimination law and the white, middle-class advantage

ABSTRACT

Equity in Athletics, Inc., v. Department of Education (2011) questioned whether schools could cut men’s sports for Title IX compliance. The case uniquely wedded racial and gender antidiscrimination precedents to argue Title IX harms men and therefore is unconstitutional. The courts disagreed and validated Title IX’s constitutionality. We argue this case did far more than endorse Title IX. Equity in Athletics showcases how antidiscrimination laws failed to redress the roots of racism, capitalism, and sexism all while ignoring harms done at the intersections. We use Crenshaw’s (1988, 1989, 1991) intersectional legal framework – single-axis, essentialism, and restrictive view of equity – to analyze Equity in Athletics. An intersectional reading of the case showcases three areas of the law – constitutionality tests, quotas, and segregation – that increase the athletic advantages for white, middle-class cis-gender girls and women at the expense and exclusion of lower-income, Girls and Women of Color, and transgender athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Intersectionality
• intercollegiate athletics
• Title IX
• segregation
• antidiscrimination
• education law
• Whiteness
• Youth sports

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use “gender” to refer to identities, social groupings, and relations of domination that arise under patriarchal power. A central issue of this paper is how U.S. law has narrowed gender protections by using the discourse of “sex”—implying inherent, biological, binary, and oppositional differences exist across two “scientific categories”: male and female. We take Crenshaw’s (1989) and Butler’s (2011) anti-essentialist view that human meaning and motivation shape and construct sex and gender.

2 We choose to capitalize all racial identifiers (e.g. People of Color or Black) except white. Crenshaw (1988) recommended such a capitalization effort to reflect that Black People are a specific cultural group that require proper noun status. However, the white racial-ethnic group’s claim to identity and culture incorporates the subordination and domination of racialized minorities. Capitalizing white legitimizes these claims.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirsten Hextrum

Kirsten Hextrum is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her research explores how state forms of domination and control are reproduced and contested at the intersection of school and sport. Her book, Special Admission: How college athletic recruitment favors white suburban athletes (Rutgers University Press, 2021) contradicts the national belief that college sports provide an avenue for upward mobility.

Zachary Cameron

Zachary Cameron, J.D., MEd, is an expert in athletics licensing and compliance. He has worked across various legal terrains including clerking for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, 15th and 7th Judicial Circuits. He also has experience working for university legal counsels and athletic compliance offices at Marshall University, University of Oklahoma, and University of Pittsburgh.