Feel the Snark at Title IX Blog

Kristine Newhall at Title IX blog took note of Duquesne’s decision to drop four men’s teams (click here to see our report from earlier this week). I think it’s instructive to read this blog, if only to note just how callous gender equity activists can be when it comes to student athletes.

The people at Collegeswimming.com seem a little miffed that although only men’s sports were dropped Title IX was not mentioned in an university press release. Well, one, they did mention gender equity.

Well, one can hardly blame a publication called College Swimming for being a little bitter at seeing the demise of yet another college swimming program. One can hardly be surprised that people who care about college athletics would be bitter that an institution like Duquesne, instead of spreading its cuts across its entire athletic department, put 70 male athletes out on the street.

I don’t know about anybody else, but if I ran into a college student who had just been told that their academic program had been eliminated, and that they would have to transfer to another school in order to continue to pursue their studies, it would be impossible not to feel sympathy for that student.

As for her claim that the Duquesne press release announcing the cuts did mention gender equity, that’s too cute by half. If you take a look back at the actual press announcement, there’s absolutely no mention of “gender equity” or “Title IX.” Instead, the reference to gender equity was buried in a canned Q&A the school published separately.

It’s almost as if Duquesne wanted to hide the fact that it was targeting the men’s athletic program for all the cuts because of Title IX. And after spending my entire career in PR, I can just about guarantee you that’s the case. After all, didn’t the late NCAA President Myles Brandspecifically warn NCAA member institutions not to blame Title IX for cuts in athletic programs that he knew would fall almost exclusively on men’s programs in tough economic times?

UPDATE: For more about the Duquesne cuts from Texas Swimming, click here.

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