A women’s athletics advocacy group has filed a Title IX complaint against Texas Christian University, claiming the university does not offer equal opportunities for female athletes on its campus.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Champion Women claims TCU does not provide women the same scholarships as men and maintains a lower female athlete recruiting budget compared to men’s recruitment efforts.
“TCU is number three in the country for short-changing women in athletic scholarship dollars,” Champion Women wrote in a statement. “It’s a shame that the adults in charge aren’t fixing these violations of federal law, leaving it to 18-22 year old students. Sad.”
While 61% of TCU’s student population identifies as female, female student-athletes make up less than 45% of the current student-athlete population — falling short of Title IX’s proportionality rule.
TCU currently offers nine men’s sports and 13 women’s sports, including basketball, beach volleyball, cross country, golf, track and field, soccer, equestrian and others.
For scholarships, men’s teams are provided with $14.3 million in scholarship funds compared to $11.2 million for women’s teams.
In its Title IX complaint, Champion Women allege that TCU should spend a minimum of $23 million in scholarship dollars for female athletes and increase the number of women’s varsity sports to accommodate at least 600 female athletes.
Despite Champion Women’s complaint, TCU’s statistics do align with the athletics landscape across much of the NCAA, where men make up a higher percentage of student-athletes than women and receive a higher total of scholarship money overall.
In a statement, a TCU spokesperson said, “Similar complaints were filed against approximately 100 schools three years ago.”
