Findings of First-of-a-Kind Study Reveals Apparent Scholarship Discrimination by NCAA

Last month, the College Sports Council (CSC) announced some preliminary findings of a study into NCAA Division I scholarships in “gender symmetric” sports that found significant disparities into opportunities for men and women. Yesterday, the CSC released the full study (click here for the charts and graphs that accompanied the study), which generated a story by Greg Beachem of the Associated Press:

Women athletes have far more opportunities than men to earn scholarships and to participate in many college sports, according to a study by an organization which advocates Title IX reform.

The College Sports Council largely limited its analysis to 19 sports in which both men and women compete, such as basketball, volleyball and tennis. The study released Wednesday determined male high-school athletes in those gender-symmetric sports face longer odds and fewer total opportunities to land college scholarships.

“We are trying to shine the light on a problem that exists where football frequently clouds the issue,” CSC chairman Eric Pearson said. “We’re not trying to tear down the women’s numbers. We just want it to be even and fair. We support both men and women playing sports. We want more sports. We want more athletes to play, both men and women, and the NCAA’s rules make that difficult.”

Click here to read the entire story.