Gender Equity Report Card

Are women receiving a fair share of the opportunities in intercollegiate athletics? The 25 year-old debate and discussion on this question has been heavy with controversy and light on facts. Indeed, the facts were unavailable to the public until the publication of the NCAA’s first Gender Equity Report in 1992. A limitation of this report, however, was that it presented aggregate data, which did not allow the public to view the performance of individual institutions. This lack of information made levelheaded discussion and analysis of gender equity difficult, and it also stymied efforts to hold individual schools accountable to the law. With the passage of The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act of 1994 (EADA), schools became obliged to divulge participation rates between women and men, coaching salaries and expenses, student aid and operating expenses. On an annual basis, beginning in October of 1996, these data became available by name of individual institution.