Advocate Group Meeting
Example: Draft Opening Statement for the Advocate Group’s First Meeting
Welcome Everyone.
We are gathered here today to bring attention to a serious situation. We have confidence that everyone knows the guidelines of Title IX. A school is obligated to ensure that it provides its male and female athletes with comparable benefits, resources and participation opportunities. [The example that follows focuses on treatment of athletes. If your group’s concern is related to opportunities to participate or funding (you want a girls’ varsity soccer team), please target that in your statement.] The treatment categories include: equipment, facilities, publicity, scheduling, coaching, travel and daily allowance, training (medical) [tutoring, recruitment, housing/dining-typically in high education] and support services.
As a group, we believe that our students should understand the value of equality and that this lesson should first be learned at home as well as realized in school. However, the students and athletes of [insert school name] do not experience a model of equality. Therefore, as the group Advocates for Change, we are willing to ensure that our school’s student-athletes have fair treatment.
Everyone here should understand the inequities that currently exist between the boys’ and girls’ programs in our school. I am pretty sure everyone has their own story to share. We will provide sufficient time to share those throughout this process. Our individual stories represent problems strictly prohibited by Title IX.
Let’s listen to just three today…
1.
2.
3.
The next phase of our plan focuses on meeting with the athletic director and principal [or college president]. Each of us has the potential to educate them on situations at our school. As a group, we need to sort through approaches for each meeting. In addition to raising awareness, we must call for action. We want to leave each meeting with the appropriate person agreeing to fulfill a request.
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