Equity in Athletics
Women’s Law Project
Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Title IX Audit: Girls Have Fewer Athletic Opportunities, Inferior Facilities, Equipment, Coaching, Publicity
A recently released audit of the nine high schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools system has revealed a stark pattern of gender inequality in athletic programming for female students.
The audit, released on April 7, 2010, was the work of Peg Pennepacker, an independent auditor with High School Title IX Consulting Services. The audit was conducted at the request of the Women’s Law Project following complaints from parents and student athletes that girls were being treated unfairly.
The audit revealed that not a single high school is offering girls a fair share of athletic opportunities. In order to give girls the same access to athletic opportunities that boys have, the school district has to create 784 new athletic opportunities for girls.
The auditor noted numerous “moderate disparities” in the treatment of female athletes in areas including facilities and locker rooms, scheduling of practices and competitions, number of competitions, coaching, equipment and supplies, training, and publicity. Among the findings:
•The boys’ locker room at Oliver High School holds 55 lockers, but the girls’ locker room holds only 43 lockers—along with all the equipment for the girls’ basketball and volleyball teams.
•Brashear High School provides the coaches of football, boys’ basketball and baseball with office space, but there is no office space for the coaches of girls’ teams.
•At Langley High School, football and wrestling are given necessary protective gear, but the girls’ volleyball team does not have enough knee pads to go around.
•All high school football teams and six of the nine wrestling teams are supplied with protective gear, but none of the girls’ teams are: instead, they must buy their own.
•The girls’ basketball coach at Perry High School notes that many girls’ games are played without an athletic trainer on site, a problem the auditor characterized as “a serious liability concern.”
•The girls’ varsity, JV and middle school basketball teams at Brashear practice in the auxiliary gym, which is not regulation size, while the boys’ teams practice in the main gym.
•At Schenley High School, while the baseball team has access to the main gymnasium for practice during inclement weather, there is no indoor practice space for the girls’ softball team.
•Girls are unwelcome in the weight rooms at several schools. One female student-athlete reported that the Oliver weight room is “for boys only.” Female athletes at Schenley and Westinghouse said they would like more time in the weight room.
•The Westinghouse High School boys’ track team practices at better facilities (Schenley Oval or Oliver) than the girls’ track team, which uses a “poor to average quality” facility behind the high school at which hurdles are not available for the girls’ practices.
•A Carrick female tennis player said that “sometimes our team doesn’t get a practice bus. We can’t walk to our courts,” which are 2.5 miles from the school.
•The varsity football teams of all nine high schools compete at Cupples Stadium, a “premiere facility” to which no girls’ team has equivalent access. Football competitions are scheduled at the most convenient and desirable times; no girls’ sport receives equivalent treatment.
The attitude reflected in the audit’s findings can be summed up in a quote from an unidentified Westinghouse coach: in Pittsburgh, “girls’ sports are not that important.”
The audit, which left many questions unanswered (for example, the audit apparently did not examine or analyze the schools’ athletic budgets), is an important first step in addressing systemic sex-based discrimination in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. We applaud the school district for taking this critical first step, and challenge the school board and PPS leadership to take prompt and decisive corrective action.
