Opinion ID: 6114506
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Substantial Proportionality

Text: The district court found that both the student-athletes’ calculation of the participation gap and MSU’s calculation of the participation gap meet the substantial-proportionality threshold because they are smaller than the average-size team at MSU. 2021 WL 650712, at . The district court erred when it compared the participation gap to the size of the average team at MSU, rather than the size of a viable team. The language of the 1996 clarification is clear. 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, i.e., a team for which there is a sufficient number of interested and able students and enough available competition to sustain an intercollegiate team. As a frame of reference in assessing this situation, OCR may consider the average size of teams offered for the underrepresented sex, a number which would vary by institution. 1996 Letter. The text of the Letter provides a clear answer about how to define a viable team: it uses “i.e.,” to define a viable team as “a team for which there is a sufficient number of interested and able students and enough available competition to sustain an intercollegiate team.” Id. It is true that the Letter states that the average size of team may be used “[a]s a frame of reference.” 1996 Letter. Yet, this language presents a clear contrast with the language in the previous sentence: “i.e.” defines viable to mean that there is sufficient interest, ability, and competition for a team, but the “average size of teams” is only “a frame of reference” in making this determination.6 The Letter provides “no indication that, as long as the participation gap is less than the university’s average women’s team size, the university meets prong one and complies with Title IX.” Lazor, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2021 WL 2138832, at . This interpretation is buoyed by language elsewhere in the Letter. The Letter emphasizes that there are no “strict numerical formulas or ‘cookie cutter’ answers.” 1996 Letter. An 6The dissent points to OCR letters that examine the average team size at institutions. Each of these letters involves circumstances in which the parties offered no evidence of whether there is sufficient interest, ability, and competition to field a viable team. In circumstances in which there is no information about interest, ability, and competition, it may be more appropriate to look at the average team as the primary point of reference. No. 21-1183 Balow et al. v. Michigan State Univ. et al. Page 13 interpretation that conflates “viable team” with “average team” creates a strict numerical formula.7 The language about the lack of strict numerical formulas makes sense only when qualitative factors, such as interest and ability, impact the definition of a “viable team.” This also comports with another purpose of the Letter: the Letter consistently focuses on whether a school accommodates the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. Based on the clear language of the guidance, a viable team is not an average one, but is instead one “for which there is a sufficient number of interested and able students and enough available competition to sustain an intercollegiate team.” 1996 Letter.