Fencing is an NCAA sport.
And the defending NCAA champions in both squash and fencing are other Ivy League schools - Harvard (men’s squash and women’s squash) and Columbia (fencing, which has a coed championship). Rather than try to improve and compete against the best of the best (in its own conference!), Brown has simply thrown in the towel. That’s a great lesson to teach one’s students - just give up if you cant’t keep up. Neither sport (squash and fencing) presented Title IX issues, since the men’s and women’s teams balanced each other out. (By the way, Brown is the poster child for Title IX because of a 1992 lawsuit that was settled six years later.)
After Malcolm Gladwell torched the school on Twitter about cutting the men’s cross-country team, Brown’s president, Christina Paxson, doubled down in an email message to the Brown University community this morning. Apparently, she doesn’t realize that the school’s scholar-athletes, their parents, and alumni of the affected teams aren’t going away without a fight. That, after all, is the lesson that athletes at Ivy League schools are suppose to learn - they can compete at just about anything at the very highest levels.
One interesting comment about Title IX from President Paxson’s message: “As the fraction of women in the undergraduate student body has increased over time (currently at about 53%), it has become more challenging for Brown to meet its obligations under the settlement agreement and Title IX given the number of teams we have. In the past, the University has achieved the required gender balance by maintaining squad sizes of men’s teams that, on average, are below Ivy League squad sizes.”
Well, @EmptyNester2016, it sounds like President Paxson wants to blame Title IX (and deflect personal responsibility). It is easier to blame a law meant to empower women than to discuss the fact that football with its 125 male athletes is a real issue when evaluating and rebalancing athletic programs.
Men’s volleyball is also a college sport that was greatly cut back years ago to help balance things (very small rosters in comparison to football). There are hundreds of women’s college volleyball programs, very few men’s programs in comparison. But,many of the men’s club volleyball teams in college are very competitive. But, guys that like volleyball have known the story for years now. I feel for the kids(male and female) in the current pipeline (or current athletes in college)for some of these sports that seem to quickly disappear all of a sudden at some colleges. Also, some parents spend lots of time and money on their kid and their sport.
The next paragraph in the missive from “CPax” contained the only reference to the sacred cow:
“The committee realized that, in their judgment, the best way to restore competitiveness and meet the goal of reducing the number of teams overall was to eliminate a number of larger men’s teams. This was an important factor in the decision to eliminate men’s track, field and cross-country which, together, provide the most varsity opportunities to men second only to football — the latter of which is a required sport for membership in the Ivy League.“
In short, remaining part of the Ivy League is the school’s #1 priority. Period. Full stop. Therefore, by definition, football is its first priority in athletics. Where the brain health of scholar-athletes and women’s sports fall on that list is anyone’s guess. But they’re definitely not #1.
Thank you for that information @EmptyNester2016! It is exactly as I surmised… football is at the heart of this conversation. The knowledge that the Ivies, and presumably other leagues, require a football team for membership should be up for review and discussion. It is disturbing that administrations cite Title IX while glossing over this other league rule that does not carry the weight of federal law. Perhaps it is rules like this one that enshrine this sport that made Title IX necessary in the first place. Why should an entire school’s athletic department be structured around this game? Why should some of our most celebrated academic institutions bind themselves so to the game of football? It makes no sense and it hampers the athletic aspirations of many others, male and female. A football team places 11 players on the field at a time but is allowed to have 10x that number on the sideline. I think this needs to be looked at as a matter of use of resources, fairness and common sense. Why is there no T&F, wrestling or volleyball at many schools? Why did Brown make the changes that were made? We need to discuss football in this regard.
The problem is that Brown is not good at a lot of sports, not just football. And Brown students are generally apathetic towards attending sporting events, especially losing teams. Chicken or egg question. Would fans show up if they had winning teams? For LAX they did.
Directors Cup standings 2018-2019:
30 Princeton
57 Harvard
64 Pennsylvania
74 Yale
80 Columbia
81 Cornell
91 Dartmouth
118 Brown
https://www.browndailyherald.com/2016/04/26/low-attendance-perennial-plague-for-athletics/
From the press release:
Brown is not competitive and the Ivy League probably told them to get better or you’re out. ?
@sushiritto, that is a useful perspective and the Director’s Cup stats are helpful. However, not every school can be above-average in Ivy League sports. Call this the Lake Woebegone paradox, if you like.
However, Brown is often at or near the bottom a lot over many, many years. How about winning occasionally? There are many programs that have gone from the bottom to the top.
Brown is trying to shore up its entire athletic program because it’s bad. If they’re not careful, Brown may get “relegated” to the NESCAC level and the UChicago football fans here on CC may get their wish and get to join the Ivy League. 
Winning is great. We all like to win. But I don’t understand why this is a zero sum game since CPax said that this wasn’t about money. Why can’t they have a lot of teams and still have a deep football bench? What is the limiting factor? If the number of admissions seats for recruiting is a factor, fine, take away the recruiting seats for the sports that would have otherwise been cut. Evidently it was only 35 seats out of a total of 162. And the money? Brown saved $500k by getting rid of those 11 sports; that’s a drop in the bucket in terms of the school’s budget.
CPax’s email from yesterday stated that she has heard deep concern from students and alumni that the decisions have disproportionately affected opportunities for black male student-athletes. The email also said that Brown has a legal obligation pursuant to Title IX and a 1998 legal settlement to offer proportional opportunities to participate in athletics for women, and that if they restored track/cross country/field (they separated these 3 for purposes of Title IX compliance) they would not be in compliance with their legal obligations, but that they will continue to closely examine Brown’s legal obligations. I take from it that they are going to try to comply with the minimum necessary (at the expense of women student-athletes) in order to meet their other stated goals.
There is an interesting article going around on medium dot com, entitled How Brown Cutting Varsity Sports Illuminated Civil Rights Violations. ( I don’t think I am allowed to link it here). The article makes several allegations that Brown has a poor record of complying with Title IX and the rights of women student-athletes.
Overall, it seems these team cuts have a whole host of negative repercussions. Why the zero sum game?
Years ago, Cal (UCB) was going to drop baseball, but donors raised $9 Million to get baseball reinstated. Can this type of fundraising take place at Brown for one or more of the dropped programs?
I think money can be raised. My question is, since CPax explicitly said it wasn’t about the money, what else could it be? Why did these teams have to be cut in order to add to football/basketball? What am I missing?
Perhaps if they didn’t cut Men’s TNF and added to FB and Men’s bkball, they would be in violation of Title IX rules?
Brown has said it was in compliance with Title IX and will continue to be.
The Ivy League has its own rules about recruiting. Each school can have an overall number of recruits, and then there is a number for each sport. It sounds like Brown wants to distribute the recruiting spots in a different way. I know Yale uses fewer than the max amount of recruiting spots but other schools use every one allowed.
Brown isn’t leaving the Ivy League so football is a given. Other conferences also require football so it is not unusual that the Ivy League does.
Right, but if they want to add recruits to football and men’s basketball (and likely some other sports) they would need to decrease (or cut entirely) men’s spots in other sports, no?
In the end they are spending the same dollar amount on athletics, and will have the same number of recruits. They elevated M & W sailing to varsity, and want to add recruits and/or expand roster sizes in football and m bkball, maybe some others.
To keep the balance and be in compliance with Title IX going forward, they eliminated men and women’s fencing, men and women’s golf, women’s skiing, men and women’s squash, women’s equestrian, and men’s track, field and cross country.
Edited to add: The article detailing the changes said “In the decade ending in 2018, Brown earned 2.8% of Ivy League titles, the lowest among member schools”. That is a significant underachievement…given there are 8 teams in the league, winning 12.5% of championships would be statistically expected over a longer time frame like a decade.
No. Title IX only requires there be equal(ish) opportunities for men and women in proportion to the male/female ratio of the school. If the school wanted to add 10 football players, it would then just have to add 10 women’s ‘opportunities’ (and spend a proportional amount on them).
The Ivy League probably has more restrictions in this area than Title IX. I think the Ivy league only allows 220 recruited athletes (? or may that’s just Yale? or the bigger schools?) Brown doesn’t just want to concentrate on Title IX compliance but on using the recruiting slots in a way to make the teams more successful. Say Brown does have 220 slots total, it can now use them across 31 teams instead of 38.
The total number of athletic recruits for each team matters. The lacrosse coach may only have 6 ‘slots’ for admissions. If because of this restructure the lax coach now has 7 slots, that is a big difference and over time the team should become better. And it may be that Harvard and Yale are using 7 slots, so that one really good player, #7, couldn’t go to Brown but could go to Yale or Harvard.
Do you have to use the recruiting slots in a particular way? cant the teams that would have otherwise been cut just voluntarily give up its recruiting slots to the football team? Even if the slots have to be proportionally distributed between men and women, that requirement would be the same regardless of the number of teams: it should be by athlete, not team
Yes, agreed on the proportionality…I didn’t say the adds and subtracts had to be equal. I don’t think the Ivy league limits number of recruits, there is some flexibility.
Totally agree that Brown wants to use their slots more effectively, which makes sense, because they are woefully underachieving in varsity sports success, at least for the decade ending 2018.
nvm
The conference limits the number of slots but the AD can distribute them among sports. So different schools use their slots differently. I had the impression Brown wasn’t using the max since the review several years ago but that might have changed.
As for a sport giving up all their slots: I think, at least in Track, it’d be very hard to get enough Ivy level athletes without the slots. The kids getting support at Brown might have options at other Ivies, and would be top recruits in the NESCAC. So a coach would need to convince them to take a pass on near guaranteed admission at other great schools just to take a gamble on Brown.