Gender Equity - The Drake Group Education Fund

The Drake Group Endorses 2024 GAO Report Detailing Title IX Enforcement Failures - In April 2024, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report, “College Athletics: Education Should Improve Its Title IX Enforcement Efforts.” The GAO found that 93 percent of all intercollegiate athletic programs were not offering athletics opportunities to females proportional to their percentage in the full-time undergraduate student body. The overall athletic participation rate ... Read more
The Drake Group Applauds the “Fair Play for Women Act” - On February 7, 2024, National Girls and Women in Sports Day, U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy (CT-D) and U.S. Representative Alma Adams (NC-12-D) introduced the Fair Play for Women Act in the 118th Congress. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Representatives Lori Trahan (D-MS-03) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1) co-sponsored the legislation. Donna A. ... Read more
The Drake Group Meets with Government Officials to Request Issuance of Title IX NIL Guidance - On March 9, 2023, a delegation of Title IX and NIL experts from The Drake Group (TDG) met with Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) staff members to ask for the assistance of OCR to ensure gender equity and compliance with Title IX in the new chaotic environment created by NIL (name, image, ... Read more
The Drake Group Letter to U.S. Dept. of Education/Office for Civil Rights — Request for Issuance of Title IX Guidance Addressing Recruiting Practices of NIL Booster Collectives - The Drake Group believes that the current NIL chaos can be relieved by DOE/OCR clearly and precisely warning institutions, their conferences, and national governance organizations of their obligations under existing Title IX requirements, explaining how those requirements apply to these new NIL-related activities, and warning that actions by “NIL booster collectives” will be attributed to the universities when appropriate. The ... Read more
The Drake Group Letter to U.S. Dept. of Education/Office for Civil Rights — Request for Issuance of Title IX Guidance Addressing Recruiting Practices of NIL Booster Collectives - The Drake Group, the sister organization of The Drake Group Education Fund, has communicated important information about NIL collectives to the Department of Education/Office for Civil Rights (DOE/OCR). The Drake Group believes that the current NIL chaos can be relieved by DOE/OCR clearly and precisely warning institutions, their conferences and national governance organizations of their obligations ... Read more
Tribute to a Gender Equity Icon – Christine H.B. Grant (1936-2021) - In December of 2021, at the age of 85 and after a life well-lived, Christine passed away. Her friends and colleagues will miss her dearly. In respect and with appreciation, The Drake Group acknowledges her many contributions to the sports management profession and the advancement of equal opportunity for and equal treatment of girls and ... Read more
Webinar #5 FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS – Title IX and the NIL Marketplace - A regular feature of our webinar series is “Follow-Up Notes/Q&As” which provides a link to the recorded webinar, answers to questions from the audience that panelists did not have the time to address (prepared by Drake Group experts), and information on previous and next webinars. This edition covers audience questions related to panelists’ discussion of ... Read more
NILs and Title IX: Educational Institutions Must Fix their Promotion, Publicity, and Recruiting Inequities Critical to the NIL Monetization Success of College Female Athletes and Must Not Use Third Parties to Evade Their Title IX Obligations - Universities must not only focus on their own Title IX compliance obligations to provide male and female athletes with equal participation opportunities, athletics scholarship support, and equal treatment and benefits (including promotion, publicity, and recruiting), they must also require the third parties they establish, control, assist, or benefit from — conferences, national governing organizations, businesses, ... Read more
WEBINAR #4: The Transgender Athlete in Girls and Women’s Sports - Following each Drake “Critical Issues in Collegiate Athletics” webinar, Drake publishes answers to all the questions that the webinar audience raised that, due to time constraints, panelists were unable to answer. This webinar featured Juniper Eastwood, first NCAA Division I openly transgender athlete competing on a women’s team; Donna deVarona, two-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer, ... Read more
The Drake Group Strongly Supports “College Athletes Bill of Rights” Introduced in the 117th Congress - On August 3, 2022, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Brian Schatz, Ron Wyden, and Alex Padilla re-introduced the “College Athletes Bill of Rights” legislation aimed at advancing justice and opportunity for college athletes. “The College Athletes Bill of Rights bill is long overdue and extremely important,” said Andrew Zimbalist, President of The Drake Group. “It protects college athletes’ rights ... Read more
2017-18 NCAA Member Institutions: Title IX Athletics Participation Compliance with Prong One Proportionality Test. - 2017-18 NCAA Member Institutions: Title IX Athletics Participation Compliance with Prong One Proportionality Test. Forty-eight years following the adoption of Title IX, most institutions are expected to comply under Title IX’s Prong One participation requirement: male and female athletic participation equal to the percent of males and females in the institution’s undergraduate student body. Female ... Read more