On March 25, the NCAA announced that it hired a prominent civil rights law firm to conduct an independent investigative review on gender inequity in its championship events.
2021’s March Madness has been under great scrutiny in the past weeks, as athletes in the Women’s Basketball Tournament spoke out against gender disparities they face in treatment, accommodations and facilities provided by the NCAA.
These disparities have been publicized via social media, as athletes and coaches fight to gain access to basic resources provided to the men’s teams.
According to a viral video filmed by an Oregon basketball player, the women’s weight-training facilities originally consisted of a single set of dumbbells, whereas the men’s facilities contained a full gym setup.
A dedicated women’s sports fan and March Madness follower, Sophia DaCosta ‘23, told The Sophian, “It is no excuse because it is one organization. They are literally at the same tournament, sharing the same spaces together and it is just blatantly not the same.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA put strict protocols in place to guarantee the safety of their athletes, coaches, and staff, including daily testing for all of the players. According to UConn’s team coach, the women are mostly given rapid antigen tests, while the men use the standard PCR tests. The rapid antigen tests are cheaper and produce results more quickly, and are widely regarded by scientists as being less accurate than the standard PCR tests.
Fans of the Women’s Basketball Tournament further denounced the NCAA, as they noticed the lack of March Madness branding during the women’s games. Their trademark “March Madness” floor decal has not been included in many of the women’s games.
The NCAA’s March Madness social media presence has always consisted exclusively of men. The bio of the official March Madness twitter account reads “the official NCAA March Madness destination for all things Division I NCAA Men’s Basketball.”
In the March 25 press release, the President of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, explains, “The NCAA will continue to aggressively address material and impactful differences between the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships…Furthermore, we are examining all championships in all three Divisions to identify any other gaps that need to be addressed.” According to Emmert’s statement, the NCAA hopes to receive a preliminary assessment in late April with a final report this summer.
Emmert himself is facing scrutiny. Throughout the tournament he largely blamed “poor communication” for the inequitable conditions. “Clearly we should have had better communication between my teams,” Emmert said during an interview with the Associated Press on March 26.
Defendants of the NCAA also pointed towards the disproportionate revenue between the Men’s and Women’s tournaments as cause of the inequity in resources. Both excuses have been criticized by athletes and coaches as being insufficient.
“People love to discuss revenue” Smith Basketball player, Ashyln Bohn ‘23, told the Sophian “They say the women deserve less because they bring in far less money than the men. But what has the NCAA invested into collegiate women’s basketball?”
“The fact that this has been going on for years and is just now getting widespread attention is appalling.” Bohn expanded, “Female athletes in the NCAA have been taught for so long to just accept these conditions, and are forced to believe that they don’t deserve any better.”
Bohn shared a statement from National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) player Midge Purce from the Equal Pay Day event hosted at the White House on March 24: “You would never expect a flower to bloom without water, but women in sport who have been denied water, sunlight, and soil are somehow expected to blossom. Invest in women, then let’s talk again when you see the return.”
“It is crazy because this is kind of an untapped goldmine,” Smith Basketball player Karena Garcia ‘21 shared. “People love sports regardless. I think if we really poured the resources that the men get into womens sports they would still benefit.”
Since the NCAA’s March 25 announcement, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) has countered Emmert’s external review proposal with a proposal of their own.
In a video message shared by Smith’s basketball team, WBCA stated that the gender inequity in the NCAA “is a longstanding, deeply ingrained systemic problem; it is not one that just happened to occur last week.”
WBCA expanded, “For this reason, we cannot accept an external review that is conducted by a law firm of the NCAA’s choosing. Instead, the WBCA calls for an independent inquiry conducted by a commission composed of persons upon whom the WBCA and NCAA will agree, supported by outside legal counsel retained by the commission itself, and fully funded by the NCAA.”
WBCA has demanded that the inquiry include “an in-depth review of the NCAA’s organizational structure, its governance of women’s and men’s sports, and its administration of women’s and men’s championships with a focus on the documented inequities that exist with the treatment of women’s basketball.”
As of March 30, WBCA has received no response from Emmert.
A self-described optimist, Garcia highlighted that the publicity concerning the inequity in women’s sports should act as a call to action for women athletes: “By exposing the NCAA it will encourage more women to play sports and to fight for their right to play sports.”
“In general, as women athletes, you already have that chip on your shoulder, but when you feel like other people are noticing it and it isn’t just something that is internal that is really powerful,” DaCosta said.
DaCosta concluded, “At the end of the day basketball is basketball, sports are sports and if you love competition, you should love competition in all of its forms.”
[ Image: Arizona guard Aari McDonald (2) drives around Stanford forward Ashten Prechtel, left, during the first half of the championship game in the women’s Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, April 4, 2021, at the Alamodome in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Morry Gash) ]
