Hurricane Warning Flag for Olympic Sports: Compliance Practices in Biediger V. Quinnipiac University Signal a Risk to Women's and Men's Olympic Sports

IntroductionTitle IX, as it applies to athletics, enjoys enthusiastic support around the country.1 Yet there are still voices that contest the premise of equality. The National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) formal support for Title IX and its implementing regulations2 has shifted the resistance from that organization to other private groups. The time may have come for Title IX advocates and men's Olympic sports3 advocates to join forces, in an effort to preserve the laudable educational mission of athletics.4 Given the new budgetary trends in college sports generally, and recent litigation involving women's sports, men's Olympic sports should be supportive of efforts to prohibit colleges and universities from disreputable practices that currently provide some female athletes with sub-par, "varsity-lite" sports experiences. If collective action is not forthcoming, men's Olympic sports will be next to suffer the same fate, as the recent budgetary trend is to shift funds toward sports like football and men's basketball. Moreover, because Title IX derives its power to provide girls and women with athletics programming from a robust lineup of men's teams-the requirements for women's teams are linked to existing offerings for men-it makes sense for women's advocates to insist that schools provide men's Olympic sports with quality sports experiences, on educational grounds, irrespective of civil rights laws.Part I of this Article discusses how the NCAA, despite its initial reluctance, has evolved into an advocate for gender equality.5 Part II then examines budget trends at NCAA schools as a window into the expanding budgets associated with the athletics arms race and the pressures to cut corners within these programs.6 Finally, Part III concludes that these trends suggest that men's Olympic sports are likely the next target of these same pressures to cut corners, as universities attempt to compete in the arms race.7I. The NCAA's Transformation into a Gender Equity AdvocateIn the one hundred years since the NCAA was founded, the biggest changes to the public face of athletics departments has probably been the wholesale inclusion of women.8 It has not been an easy assimilation for women, and, as this Article describes, realizing the spirit of the gender equity laws continues to be difficult. For the first seventy years of its existence, the NCAA exclusively represented men. But even by the early 1970s, the NCAA could see change coming; it was becoming involved in lawsuits for violating women's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides for equal protection under the law.9 After the passage of Title IX, and with the specter of major growth in women's athletics on the horizon, the NCAA tried mightily to avoid the application of Title IX to athletics departments and its membership, both in Congress10 and the courts.11 These efforts all failed.12By 1980, it became clear that women's sports would grow in numbers and stature, and also thereby require the dedication of significant resources. After the NCAA failed to weaken the Title IX laws, in 1982 the organization consolidated its power as the singular voice for university athletics by combining with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), an organization born from the physical education departments in colleges and universities.13 The new consolidated organization did come with a compromise from the NCAA: the association agreed it would cease its efforts to thwart the goals of gender equity in athletic departments.14The NCAA has made good on its agreement. Not only has it passed the Hippocratic Oath test-it has not harmed women by taking stands against women's sports participation-it has also become a powerful ally for Title IX and women's rights within athletics. In fact, in 1992, the NCAA created the Committee on Women's Athletics and adopted Operating Principle 3.1, Gender Issues, which advances a commitment to demonstrating fair and equitable treatment of both men and women. …