Guest Blog: William and Mary Alumna Mary Motch discusses Title IX and saving Tribe Swimming
On Wednesday, September 3rd at 1:30pm, I looked down at my phone to see a text from my former teammates at William and Mary. “Emergency meeting for all alumni, parents, and current members of the team this Friday.” By the time I read the words “emergency meeting,” my heart had sunk. I already knew what that meant.
Over the summer I watched as team after team got cut from athletic programs all over the country. A few days after Dartmouth [swimming & diving] was cut, my brother and I ran into his old teammate who was a sophomore on Dartmouth’s swim team. The sadness and the look of defeat on his face was something that I’ll never forget, but here I was facing the same problem a few months later.
Just over 90 minutes after the text, the announcement had been made to the team and we knew the fate of the team. At first, I was overcome by anger and sadness. Sitting next to the pool deck I began crying thinking of everything that the team had given me. Through all the ups and downs, they were still there for me, never giving up, even when it felt like my body was. I had known it was possible that our team might be cut, but I thought the endowment left us untouchable. In the end, it wasn’t enough.
Over 400 people attended the Zoom call for current athletes, parents, and alumni that week. The following morning, we all got to work. We were organized and developed an action plan to save our team.
I joined the effort to create a website, and within three days we were ready to launch it and begin the fight to Save Tribe Swimming. Groups of alumni worked to send emails and encourage pledges. Others liaised with local media to share our story. All of us were there for each other to provide emotional support. But most importantly, though, we began our legal case.
I saw a tweet from 1984 Olympic gold medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar saying that, despite the cuts to teams, William and Mary did not meet Title IX requirements, even though the school asserted they made the cuts partially to meet those same requirements. She wrote that filing a lawsuit could help save the team, but it had to be filed by current women on the team. The thought of filing a lawsuit to only save the women’s team sounded like a last-ditch effort to save some form of a team that I would come to not recognize. I came to William and Mary because of the bond that the two teams had, but little did I know that the lawsuit was how we would save both teams.
“Prior to this fight, my basic knowledge of Title IX was that it helped students report sexual assault and required equal treatment of men and women at the college level across the board. I truly thought the sports at William and Mary had been equal. W&M had one more women’s team than men’s, but with larger teams like football, I figured it balanced out.”
Looking back, I am shocked by how off I was. Prior to the cuts, female athletic opportunities represented 46% of athletic spots available. However, 57% of the student body was female, meaning the athletic department was off by 11%. When the cuts happened, female athletic opportunities increased to 51%, which was still 6% off what was needed to meet federal regulations.[1]
The most shocking part to me, though, was that Title IX isn’t new, so how could my school be so far off meeting equal opportunities for both sexes, 48 years after Title IX was implemented? When Title IX became law, 58% of college students were men. But as of 2019, 56% of all college students were female.[2] Clearly, despite federal law, college athletics have not kept up with the changing landscape of gender enrollment percentages.
W&M’s initial response was to disregard the lawsuit, cut even more spots from men’s teams, and add women’s spots to existing teams. Despite seeming to work on paper, in practice it doesn’t actually create more opportunities for women to succeed. Those women would then have less access to coaches, less playing time, and fewer opportunities to travel.
Prior to our former athletic director leaving, her answer to disregard the lawsuit that was filed was to rapidly cut spots on the men’s teams that were still there and add more women’s spots to already existing teams. While that might sound like a wonderful idea on paper, in practice it doesn’t actually create more opportunities for women to succeed. Realistically looking at it, women would have less accesses to coaches, less playing time, and less opportunities to travel.
In the end, these adjustments weren’t made, and our Athletic Director stepped down. Soon after, the school realized they wouldn’t win the lawsuit and, on October 19th, announced that all of the women’s teams that were cut would be reinstated. Save Tribe Swimming’s executive committee continued to push to have the men’s team reinstated as well. Two weeks later, the school brought back all the men’s teams too, pending fundraising goals and a gender equity review that will be released June 30, 2021.
As an active participant in the Save Tribe Swimming movement, I found that Title IX can be used as a way to help all student-athletes, as a tool to hinder many to benefit a few, or be completely ignored in hopes of not seeing a lawsuit. I also learned that most colleges are actually failing to meet the athletic requirements expressed in Title IX.
“As the dynamics of college enrollment continue to change and the money-making capacity of college athletics continues to grow, there needs to be more pressure put on schools to meet the requirement for equal opportunity for all sexes. While some schools are much closer than others, it’s clear that the system is broken, and the pandemic has made that more apparent than ever before. ”
Since William and Mary’s reinstatement, there has been a trend of more teams being reinstated. While not all of them have been yet, a clear statement has been presented to administrations that cutting teams will not be the answer for solving the problem and will only create alumni pushback. At the end of the day, I am thankful for the connections that this journey has brought me.
It is now our job to make sure the school stands true to its word and build a network so that our team doesn’t find itself on the chopping block again in the future.
Mary Motch is an alum of William & Mary.
She graduated in 2020.