Title IX experience?

I filed a Title IX complaint against our school district a while back. The most important thing is they’ll look at athletic departments as a whole and not by sport. So baseball can have a nicer field as long as the gymnastics team is of similar quality.

Regarding booster funds, they’re not supposed to give money directly to one sport, but it happens all the time. The trouble with Title IX complaints is the OCR goes by the word of the school district so if you don’t have absolute proof, they’ll believe the district.

My complaint also included the city and availability of baseball vs softball fields for kids. At first I was told the OCR can only look at cases involving school districts. When I pointed out many of the fields were on school district land and only operated by the city they agree to look. While baseball fields with 200 ft fences outnumbers softball 8-0 they sided with the district because the youth baseball organization allowed girls to play so therefore they weren’t discriminating. Total crock of course, but it is what it is.

Entire process from initial date I approached to school district to when the investigation was closed was six years. The district did build two new softball fields for the HS team, but that was about it. The OCR ruled that the district had corrected any other disparities based only on the word of the district and closed the case.

I could go on and on, but doctors want me to keep my blood pressure down

If you want more info or have questions on how to proceed or file a complaint feel free to PM me.

Hope things turn out in the girls favor!

Been about 6 years since I dealt with this, but the applicable California law is AB2404. My recollection is the school district tried to interpret the law as giving them another 18 months to fully comply, but backed down when my wife got mad enough she was willing to fund a lawsuit.

It took us about 5 years from asking nicely, to being more persistent, to threatening a lawsuit, to actually saying we were hiring an attorney, to get results. They tried to get away with giving us one field 4 days a week, when any fair distribution of field space said we needed a minimum of 11 field days a week.

What I have heard in the past, schools think if they try to delay it 3-4 years, the parents who started the complaining lose interest after their daughters graduate and the problem will go away.

The school district also encouraged the local baseball organization to start a small softball division to try to avoid giving us more space.

The other argument they used was since the baseball organizations had paid for most of the improvements to the fields they used, it wasn't 'fair' to give us space. We had to wind up giving the baseball organization some money when we took over one of the fields 7 days a week towards the money they had invested in the field over the years.

The baseball organization that wound up trying to help us a little bit wound up losing a field to us, while the one that fought us and started a small softball division didn't lose any field space. They of course did what they did in the mid-90's. After 4 or 5 years, they shut down their softball division.

You have guts to fight a school district this way. Hats off for fighting the good fight.

Thanks all- some good (if discouraging) info as well as nuggets of wisdom here.in our situation, i think the town can help and would like to help, but also doesnt want to shoot themselves in the foot in the process. Lots of retirees in our community who can stay up late on weeknights to attend town meetings and vote dowmn any improvements that are brought up for vote. In one case they voted DOWN a developer providing the town with a free public parking garage as part of a new develepoment. Now the development is buuilt and occupied and theres still a parking problem downtown, but i digress.

Some important takeaways from this : if legal action is pursued, expect it will run 5-6 years. Our town/school system knows that people complaining about High School will last 3-4 years and move on. Providing equal athletic opportunities and accommodations for both sexes may be looked at overall, not just season by season. Theres more but those were significant, thank you!

I am always torn on this subject since I was once the HC of both the baseball and softball programs. As the baseball coach, when I came to my school, we didn't have a cage at all. I went to work and started doing hitting lessons, camps, ... all of the money I made, I put into the baseball program. I don't know how many dollars of donations I made since I just bought the stuff myself and built the cages. We went from zero cages to three full cages, two half cages, two rolling cages, 6 turf hitting mats, 3 net hitting stations, 4 pitcher bullpen mound, 10 screens including 2 full rolling screens, ... We had better facilities than the local D-I. Naturally, complaints were made. In the end, the school put up 2 turf cages for the softball program and I use those now. I look at the other facilities and know how they came to be. I don't get upset and believe what softball has is as good as the baseball facilities though not as numerous. Others still see it differently. I am too old now to do all of that work I did to get the baseball stuff and I have accepted that. My one major gripe now is that the bleacher facilities are not as nice and we have a lot of fans show up. In fact, we put on a huge softball tournament and usually host the Regional Tournament.

Thans CB. Just to be clear with everyone, im not looking for unjust enrichment here, just asking about how it goes. If the boys program receives a million dollars in donations and the girls receive zero, the boys cant/shouldnt be penalzed for hogging the funds. I intend to take the high road, stay positive and work with the system. I hear “Title 9” being thrown about in conversations by people who have no experience and very little understanding of what it is. Because we no longer have kids in school, maybe they’ll be more willing to work with us. I think small town politics may be an obstacle, but we’ll just take it as it goes. (I like the idea of asking about the Title 9 compliance officer )