EDUCATION AND SPORTS
 

General Legal Standard
 
Students and employees of a school are protected from discrimination based on sex.  This includes education, employment and sports.  Any school or college that receives federal funding must provide equal opportunities to both sexes.  This means the school must try to have relatively equal numbers of female students compared to male students.  It also means that the school has to provide similar opportunities to female athletes that it does to male athletes.  This can include anything from the number of athletes participating in sports to providing similar funding for recruiting. 
 
Some examples of discrimination under Title IX may include:
 
  • Refusing to add a girl’s soccer team even though there is a valid interest
  • Providing disproportionate funding to men’s sports over women’s sports or vice versa, including head coaches’ and assistant coaches’ salaries, athletics facilities and recruiting dollars
  • Sexual harassment of a student by a professor or another student
  • Failing to hire female professors in certain departments
  • Failing to hire a male coach for a girl’s/women’s team or a female coach for a boy’s/men’s team
Coaches

Coaches are the primary line of defense for female students obtaining equal funding and equal opportunities with males.  Athletes aged 18-22 are not often willing to challenge the system.  While coaches are also at risk of retaliation, coaches have better access to administrators and women’s advocacy groups that can provide support in challenging unfair funding of men’s sports over women’s sports. While the decision of a coach to challenge the system can be difficult, it can be done and done with success, particularly when a coach obtains legal advice prior to suffering retaliation. 

All information on our website is meant to be generally informative.  To find out whether you may have a case of age discrimination, you should consult a lawyer of your choice.

Newkirk Law Firm is now on twitter!  Follow us at http://twitter.com/EVCivilRights 

Litigation
News & Events

9.13.11: Wall Street Journal Law Blog Class Action Trial Against the State of Iowa.pdf

9.29.10:  Des Moines Register - Employment bias lawsuit against state gets class-action status 

9.28.10:  KCCI Channel 8 - State Faces Class-Action Discrimination Lawsuit

9.28.10:  Chicago Tribune - Judge expands scope of Iowa hiring lawsuit

8.27.10:  Des Moines Register - 5 women sue toy firm, say they were harassed

8.26.10: Business Record - Toy distributor faces sexual harassment claims

8.26.10:  WHO-TV - Indianola toy company sued by former employees over claims of sexual harassment

9.29.09:  WHO-TV reports of ongoing discrimination in State government

9.17.09:  Findings of race discrimination removed from State of Iowa report

3.4.09: 
Iowa Central Community College Settles Case with Mary Conrad

11.21.08:
Ex-ISU Coach Awarded $287,000

7.19.08: 
Lawsuit Against Iowa Central Community College Goes On

10.30.07:
State of Iowa Sued for Widespread Race Discrimination 

3.12.08:
Fairfield Worker Wins Wrongful Termination Case

10.11.06:
State of Iowa Bias Against African American Employees

10.1.06: 
Employees Accuse Iowa Workforce Development of Racism

11.24.05:
Eliserio v. United Steelworkers - Racial Discrimination Case 

7.15.05:
Fattahi v. Iowa DOT - Discrimination Case

4.28.04:
Fulkerson v. Borgen Systems - Sexual Harassment Case