Competitive cheering does not fall under Title IX

Competitive cheering is not a "college sport" for Title IX purposes, and I don't disagree. Here's what I wrote to a pal who asked me about it.

Am I crazy, or does this sound like a good thing? Universities can't just say "well, we've got ladies in short skirts cheering on our football players, so we've got parity."

Well, on the one hand, competitive cheering is very much an athletic endeavor. The participants have to be very fit. The routines are like a combination of gymnastics and dancing. Your squad can reasonably be called a "team." Also, there are national competitions.

On the other hand, it's not a college sport the way that gymnastics, football, tennis, baseball, track, volleyball, etc., are. (And it's not a fine art, like dance.) There may be men who participate -- the original cheerleaders were, after all, all-male pep squads -- but it's a female ghetto. It's not a game, but then neither is a track and field meet. Now, there's a chicken-and-egg problem there, of course: how can it be a college sport if Title IX doesn't recognize it as such, and how can it get Title IX recognition unless it's a college sport? The answer, I think, is that more colleges need to have cheer squads. Right now, it looks as though there are only 8 schools in that cheer organization, the National Competitive Stunts and Tumbling Association (formed only in January of this year) -- out of how many schools with cheer squads? And out of how many American colleges and universities that fall under Title IX? I think Title IX will be more likely to consider cheering a "college sport" once there are more competitions between schools.

I wonder if NCAA recognition is a touchstone. Even the school that the court ruled against seems to think so. Dig the press release from Quinnipiac University, linked above: it states that "[t]he goal of the NCSTA is to usher stunts and gymnastics into NCAA emerging sports status and eventually, a NCAA fully sanctioned varsity sport with a NCAA sponsored national championship."

I'll give the school the benefit of the doubt and say that it's likely they were happy to have a cheering program on campus as a sports scholarship opportunity for women, and that they weren't trying to weasel out of Title IX requirements by eliminating volleyball over cheering. But I have to agree with the ruling. Until cheering is, say, an Olympic sport, or there are NCAA rules about it, then it's not a "college sport" for Title IX purposes.

Which is not to say that I think it could never be a college sport: if track and field sports and gymnastics are college sports, then cheering could be, too. Cheering requires athleticism, training, and rigorous practice; there are rules; and you score and judge the cheer routines in as objective a way as you can for this kind of thing. Clearly, it's a sport. (In Wisconsin, it's legally a "contact sport" (PDF).) Develop it into more of a national program first (and, yes, Title IX "subsidy" would help that along), and then I'll allow that it's a college sport. It's merely premature now to expect competitive cheering to get Title IX recognition.