OT: Cheerleading court ruling
You may recall that members of the now-defunct Quinnipiac volleyball team sued the school for dismantling the team to form a cheerleading squad. If you're like me, you meant to wait anxiously for the ruling but instead forgot about it altogether. Still, despite my apathetic forgetfulness, a federal judge has ruled on the case:
It's official: cheerleading is not a sport.
That's the word from a federal judge, who ruled Wednesday that Quinnipiac University failed to provide equal opportunities for its female athletes when it tried to cut women's volleyball and offer competitive cheerleading instead.
I swear there was a thread about this already, but apparently it's gone. Oh well. Whatever you guys did to get it deleted last time, don't do it again.
otherwise I wouldn't have posted this. My apologies for the redundancy!
No problem, news is still news. I think there were a couple of posts of "posting women just for the sake of posting hot women" going on in that thread. Apparenlty one of the mods, quite possibly Brian, objected to the objecticification.
While I'm all for recognizing the fact that cheerleading is not a sport, I still am not entirely happy with this ruling. The bottom line is that more guys want to play sports than girls, even after decades of the (well intentioned) Title IX. The upshot of this ruling is not going to be expansions of women's sports, it's going to be lower-tier men's sports like rowing, swimming, etc. being cut. Title IX was well intentioned and has done some real good, but it's time for some serious reform.
While D-I football programs often rake in the cash, at lower levels they often operate in the red. Due to immense popularity, they are maintained while less popular sports get the axe. While this approach makes a lot of sense from the perspective of keeping the most students/alums/fans happy, it is unfortunate that opportunities are taken away in those sports less popular among spectators.
If only Title IX had said equal opportunity must be achieved by adding women's opportunities, not subtracting men's opportunitiies. Everybody would be happier.
I completely agree. I had friends on Western Michigan's men's track team that got cut in order to keep the school compliant with Title IX due to lack of funding. Title iX serves its purpose, but too many non-revenue sports are getting the axed in order to keep schools Title iX compliant. I guess I am cynical, i just never see reform happening in this current political environment. It sucks and I hate how midlevel universities (those without major revenue producing football and basketball programs) are resorting to cutting sports.
In this case, I think the judge was trying to send a message. While competitive cheer might be considered a sport for the purposes of Title IX, (though the judge said, "no") it was pretty clear that the judge was raising a cocked eyebrow at the school.
I think his ruling on cheerleading might simply have been his approach to punishing Quinnipiac for its inequitable treatment of women student-athletes overall, forcing the school to reconsider its womens' athletic programs. The article (linked by the OP) says that in his ruling, the judge noted that the university had not been offering athletic opportunities proportionate to the number of women enrolled in the school.
ugh replied to the wrong post
But I agree with you, Sister. If a team consists of just, well, cheering, or NFL style looking pretty and dance, it can be a social club. But competitive cheerleading? That's a sport. It's more athletic than a lot of traditional sports, and has a much higher rate of injury than most of those sports too. There are interest groups that don't want it to be considered a sport, because then you have to abide by (and PAY for) all the usual safety requirements and such you get with sport squads.
I'm not familiar with this case...if they were just throwing a bunch of girls out there to go "Yayyyy" and say we've met Title IX, then the judge was right. But if it's a full on competitive team, the judge blew it. Because in actuality, it would be a great way to help offset football that has no female match in athletic programs.
The whole episode is a half an hour. They show injury rates for cheerleaders, women who have been paralyzed, and the major corporation that controls most of the training and equipment for the cheer community....and doesn't want to have to pay for EMS workers, or safety precautions, or trained teachers...it's a big scam to make and save money.
I think competitive cheer leading is a sport. Nascar is a sport, right?
There's NCAA NASCAR now? (SEC speeeed! joke here)
and I do get what you're saying, but motorsports are a completely different category.
How can Cheer not be? Bowling can be fun, especially with the right people, pizza and beer (not necessarily in that order), but that activity is NOT a sport.
The school dropping v-ball in favor of cheer is probably more of an economic decision and title IX dwcision than it is a logical or "sport" issue. I assume there are more cheer members than vball(Title IX) and maybe less travel expenses with cheer(econ). Either way the school made the wrong decisin and I agree the judge was going after the school moreso than the sports specifically.
I'll tell you what the larger problem is here, it's that there are a lot of schools that shouldn't be Division I but are anyway. Quinnipiac is relatively new to the D-I arena and it's pretty clear they can't actually afford it. NCAA needs to tighten up its enforcement and regulations for D-I membership and if there are schools that can't hack it, which there are, then the ranks should shrink accordingly.
I have no problem considering cheerleading a women's sport. In fact, I think it's more justifiable as a sport (under official Title IX designation) than a lot of others, given how immensely popular it is among girls and women. I don't know many high schools that offer field hockey, but cheer is everywhere. The law should stop pretending that men and women not only are drawn to sports equally, but that they're drawn to the same list of sports. That said, Quinnipiac shouldn't have tried to drop volleyball; that is one sport that does have a high female participation rate.