Quick hit: How colleges get around Title IX (hint: it’s by lying)

It’s long been an open secret that colleges tend to work around the rules in order to make it look like they’re complying with Title IX, the law that, among other things, requires institutions that receive federal funding to distribute that money equally between men’s and women’s sports teams. Today, the New York Times ran a damning article about all the different loopholes that schools use to get around that requirement:

At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.

At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants.

Go read the whole thing. It’s long, but it busts this thing wide open. And it’s just the first installment in a series on Title IX compliance, so stay tuned for more!