Title IX and Title IV, ôTitle IX is Civil Rights law, designed to assure the under-represented gender that it has as much right to participation opportunities in educationally based athletics as does the over-represented gender.ö Despite these sentiments, an increasing number of lawsuits alleging discrimination have been filed against the NCAA as well as individual schools by college athletes.
A number of lawsuits have recently been mounted against the NCAA that allege discrimination. In Smith v. NCAA (288 F.3d 548), Renee M. Smith, a volleyball player for St. Bonaventure University, was denied permission to play at two institutions she attended as a graduate student by the NCAA. Smith sued the NCAA, alleging that its rule that a postgraduate student can only participate in intercollegiate athletics at the school where she received her undergraduate degree represented a violation of Title IX. Smith charges that more men than women had been offered waivers by the NCAA to play at different postgraduate schools. In Smith v. NCAA (288 F.3d 548), Smith argued that ôthe NCAA governs the federally funded intercollegiate athletics programs of its members, that these programs are educational, and that the NCAA benefited economically from its membersÆ receipt of federal funds.ö The court denied SmithÆs motion but that denial was reversed by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals viewed the NCAAÆs recdipt of dues from federally funded members did bring it within the scope of Title IX as a recipient of federal funds.
The Supreme Court heard the case in February, 1999. In its ruling, the High Court raised the legal bar for filing sex-discrimination lawsuits against the NCAA. As Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote in v. Smith, 525 U.S. 459, Docket: 98-84 (1999), ôAt most, the associationÆs receipt of dues demonstrates that it indirectly benefits from the federal assistance afforded its members.ö SmithÆs lawyers had argued t...