Hamilton

Title IX Here at Hamilton


The Past
Since its merger with Kirkland College in 1977, Hamilton’s Athletic department has grown and worked to come into compliance with Title IX. After the merger, men’s sports out-numbered women’s at Hamilton eleven to two. In its first year as a co-educational institution, Hamilton added three women’s sports teams. This move started Hamilton’s climb towards proportional equality between women and male athletes. The next year, 1979, Hamilton added three more women’s sports and one more men’s varsity sport. The total number of women’s sports now equaled eight, a 300% improvement over just two years before. At this point, Hamilton had proven that they were dedicated to expanding the athletic program for women.

1979 was also the year that the Department of Education issued its "policy interpretation" (Link to Compliance portion of Project) for Title IX. This divided athletic issues into three categories of compliance. The first of these three categories was Accommodation of Interests and Abilities. This is the portion with the three-prong test. In order to stay in compliance with Title IX a school must comply with one of the three prongs. The second of these says that a school must have a history of expanding the program of the under-represented sex. The growth of the women’s athletic department during this time moved Hamilton into compliance. Hamilton did not stop its growth here. Over the next six years, Hamilton added four more varsity teams for women and two JV teams as well. By 1985, Hamilton had twelve varsity women’s sports. The women’s athletic department now had only one fewer women’s sport than men’s sports. In 1989, Hamilton continued to expand on the athletic opportunities for women by adding a JV women’s soccer team. The most recent major step made by the athletic department was the addition of Women’s Ice Hockey as a Varsity sport. Both the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams at Hamilton participate in the ECAC (Link to http://hockey.ecac.com).

All of this growth in the athletic department has moved Hamilton’s status to the first prong of the three-prong test. In 1997, 46.6 percent of the Student body at Hamilton were women, and 43.3% of the student-athletes were women. The difference was a mere 3.3%, well within the 5% margin that is accepted for disparity.

Although Hamilton College has done so much to improve the standing of women’s sports in the past, the athletic department has come under criticism for doing very little. Tom Murphy (Hamilton’s Athletic Director) commented, "It is very easy for students to criticize the athletic department for gender equity disparities. However, most criticizers don’t see what we have accomplished over the last nineteen to twenty years." He continued, "The future still holds more improvement for women’s sports at Hamilton."

Coach Murphy also commented on the importance of aspects of gender equity besides proportionality. Two things which Hamilton has done in order to improve women’s athletics here at Hamilton are the addition of a full time position for women’s sports (Julie Diehl), and the addition of a women’s athletic director (Sue Viscomi). Former Gender Equity Committee Chair, Robert Simon pointed to the many other aspects of gender equity besides proportionality associated with Hamilton’s Title IX compliance, "I’ve seen a lot of great things in the athletic department over the last few years. The big things have included the growth in budgets for women’s sports teams, the adding of coaches to women’s teams, the administration of booster funds, and of course the addition of women’s ice hockey."

The Future
The many great things that have been done in the past at Hamilton set the stage for what is still to come. In 1997, the proportionality difference between female students and female athletes was only 3.3%. Although within the 5% that the school is allowed, Hamilton will continue to reduce this size. "The addition of crew as a varsity sport will help continue to increase the proportionality of women in the athletic department. This is because women outnumber men on Hamilton’s crew teams 2-1. A new NESCAC rule will limit the size of football team rosters to 70 players," stated Murphy. This will not only help the proportionality aspect of Hamilton’s athletic department, but it will also save money. Hopefully the money saved can be used to help improve some of the women’s sports programs.

According to Robert Simon the new program to help promote gender equity in the distribution of booster money evenly to programs will be a big improvement for the future. Established men’s programs such as football, and basketball often receive large sums of money from alumni compared to younger women’s programs. In the future there will be a gender equity fund, which a portion of alumni donations go to. This money collected will be distributed to underfunded teams to help balance the amount of money sports teams receive through donations. For the most part the money from this fund will go to the less established women’s teams to help balance their funding with the more established sports. (There has also been the introduction of the Winton Tolles Invitational Golf Tournament to help raise money for this fund.)

Both Tom Murphy and Robert Simon feel that the next step in the pursuit of Gender Equity in the Athletic Department is the addition of full time coaches for women’s sports. Currently a gender imbalance exists between males and females (9-3) in the athletic department. In addition, full-time coaches currently coach all of the men’s sports teams at Hamilton (with the exception of golf which is coached by a full time professor), while five women’s sports teams have part-time head coaches. Both Murphy and Simon feel that this imbalance is a result of understaffing in the athletic department. The Hamilton athletic department only has 12 full-time faculty positions, while it supports 26 Varsity sports. The number of full-time athletic positions is more than four less than the NESCAC average of 16.2 positions. Coach Murphy proposed a plan to the Dean of Faculty, which would add 6 full-time positions to the Athletic Department and double the number of full-time coaches for women’s teams.