Opinion ID: 6114506
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Calculating the Participation Gap

Text: After determining the number of participants, the district court considered the participation gap as a percentage of the size of the athletic program. 2021 WL 650712, at . This was improper. The correct inquiry focuses on the number of participation opportunities, not the gap as a percentage of the athletic program. The text of the 1979 Policy Interpretation and the 1996 Letter prove this point. The language of the 1979 Policy Interpretation is clear: schools must provide participation opportunities for males and females “in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.” 44 Fed. Reg. at 71,418 (emphasis added). The Dear College Letter likewise focused on the number, not percentage, of participation opportunities. See 1996 Letter. The district court, however, justified its consideration of percentages based on language from the 1996 letter that provided that “this determination depends on the institution’s specific No. 21-1183 Balow et al. v. Michigan State Univ. et al. Page 8 circumstances and the size of its athletic program.” 1996 Letter. The district court reasoned that “[i]f the size of an athletic program is relevant, then the size of the participation gap in relation to the size of the athletic program should also be relevant.” 2021 WL 650712, at . This logic ignores the clear text of the 1979 Policy interpretation and misinterprets the reasoning of the 1996 Letter. The 1979 Policy Interpretation never refers to percentages and discusses only the “numbers” of participation opportunities provided. 44 Fed. Reg. 71,413, 71,418 (Dec. 11, 1979). Although the 1996 Letter refers to both numbers and percentages, its central focus is on the numbers. It asks whether a school provides “participation opportunities for male and female students in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective full-time undergraduate enrollments,” calculates compliance based on “the number of participation opportunities,” and notes that opportunities are substantially proportionate “when the number of opportunities that would be required to achieve proportionality would not be sufficient to sustain a viable team.” 1996 Letter (emphasis added). Importantly, the 1996 Letter never discussed the participation gap as a percentage. Although it refers to percentages in other contexts, it uses only numbers to refer to the participation gap. Percentages are helpful in comparing the gender ratio of the athletic program to the gender ratio of the undergraduate body. They are not, however, the correct tool for measuring the participation gap. Although a few examples in the Letter speak in terms of percentages, none of these examples contemplates calculating the participation gap as a percentage. The dissent appears to rely on two examples that it claims “illustrat[e] the participation gap as a percentage.” Dissenting Op. at 20. The first involves an institution with an enrollment that is 52% male and 48% female, in which 52% of athletes are male and 48% are female. If the enrollment shifts to 51% male and 49% female, the school need not “fine tune its program.” 1996 Letter. The second involves an institution that had a consistent enrollment rate of 50% for women, which spiked to 52% in a certain year. Neither example illustrates how to calculate the participation gap. They stand only for the principle that fluctuations in enrollment will not force a school out of compliance. Comparing these examples with the two that immediately follow shows that they do not support the claim that the participation gap is measured as a percentage. The next two No. 21-1183 Balow et al. v. Michigan State Univ. et al. Page 9 examples involve schools of various sizes in which women make up 52% of the university’s enrollment but only 47% of the institution’s athletes. Unlike the prior examples, these examples offer instruction on how to calculate a participation gap, and they calculate it as a number. Id. They show that, although percentages are relevant, the ultimate focus should be on the numerical participation gap.2 The district court further implies that participation gaps that are lower than two percent satisfy substantial proportionality. This bright line is inconsistent with the 1996 Letter. Substantial proportionality “depends on the institution’s specific circumstances and the size of its athletic program” and is determined “on a case-by-case basis.” 1996 Letter; see, e.g., Lazor v. Univ. of Connecticut, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2021 WL 2138832, at  (D. Conn. May 26, 2021) (finding “the defense that a participation gap percentage of less than 2% satisfies the test for substantial proportionality” to be “unpersuasive”); Robb v. Lock Haven Univ., No. 4:17-CV00964, 2019 WL 2005636, at  (M.D. Pa. May 7, 2019) (“While [a 3.35% gap] could be termed a ‘borderline case’ in terms of raw statistics, a glance at Lock Haven’s long history of Prong One nonsatisfaction reveals that gap cannot be attributed to natural fluctuations in the student body, and the number of lost opportunities that gap represents—36—is not too small to support a new varsity team.” (footnotes omitted)); see also Equity in Athletics, Inc. v. Dep’t of Educ., 639 F.3d 91, 110 (4th Cir. 2011) (“DOE has not specified a magic number at which substantial proportionality is achieved.”). “[W]e do not, in any event, understand the 1996 Clarification to create a statistical safe harbor at [two percent] or any other percentage.” Biediger III, 691 F.3d at 106.3 2The dissent argues that the term “substantial proportionality” “inherently requires reference to a ratio or percentage.” Dissent at 21 n.6. As the dissent acknowledges, however, the relevant ratio comes from comparing the athletic opportunities to the gender breakdown of the undergraduate student body. This is the relevant ratio, not the percentage of the athletic opportunities relative to the size of the athletic program. This ratio is a variable in the equation that is used to calculate the participation-gap number. The fact that one ratio is used in evaluating substantial proportionality does not mean that every part of the compliance determination requires the use of a ratio. 3Many cases (none of which are binding on this court) have drawn a bright line around two percent. See, e.g., Equity in Athletics, 639 F.3d at 110 (“EIA provides no support for its contention that a disparity as low as 2% (and, according to the record, not much above 1%) is substantially disproportionate as a matter of law.”); Boulahanis v. Bd. of Regents, 198 F.3d 633, 639 (7th Cir. 1999), abrogated on other grounds by Trentadue v. Redmon, 619 F.3d 648 (7th Cir. 2010) (explaining that “the University has achieved substantial proportionality” when “the athletic participation of men remained within three percentage points of enrollment”); Anders, 2021 WL No. 21-1183 Balow et al. v. Michigan State Univ. et al. Page 10 While the percentage gap may be relevant, substantial proportionality should be determined by looking at the gap in numerical terms, not as a percentage. A school may fail to achieve substantial proportionality even if its participation gap is only a small percentage of the size of its athletic program.