Athletic Director Sues Lafayette for Sex Bias
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Strike a glass ceiling hard enough and it will break. At least that was the feeling more than a decade ago at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., when Eve Atkinson was appointed the athletic director. She was the first woman hired to that position at a Division I school with combined men’s and women’s athletic programs and a Division I-AA football team. Her mandate included bringing Lafayette, a college of nearly 2,300 students 60 miles north of Philadelphia, into compliance with federal guidelines on college athletics, including those meant to promote gender equity. She wrote reports. She lobbied for budget changes. Then on Nov. 4, 1999, she was called into the president’s office and handed a letter. She was being dismissed from the college. No reason was given, she said. Because the college requires that at least a year’s notice be given, the letter said her last day would be June 30, 2001. Atkinson, who as president of the Eastern College Athletic Conference is one of the highest-ranking women in college sports, has filed a lawsuit in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania charging Lafayette and its president, Arthur J. Rothkopf, with sex discrimination. The suit says that Atkinson is the victim of ”retaliation for raising issues of gender discrimination in the funding of collegiate sports at Lafayette College.” ”I was shocked,” Atkinson said in a telephone interview. ”Because I pushed these issues, that’s when the retaliation started happening.” Glenn Airgood, the director for public information at Lafayette, said that the college was dismissing Atkinson because ”it’s time for new leadership in its athletic programs.” He also said that Atkinson did not have tenure as she has contended. As for most of Atkinson’s accusations that the college was not complying with Title IX, the 1972 legislation that prohibits discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds, Airgood said, ”We don’t feel that her allegations have any merit.” Lafayette College is one of the smallest Division I schools and is in the Patriot League, which currently consists of seven colleges. The college has 23 Division I varsity programs, 11 of them in women’s sports. The women’s lacrosse and field hockey teams are among the most successful at the school; the women’s lacrosse team won its ninth league championship this season. Atkinson was hired in 1990 to be the school’s athletic director, head of the department of athletics and a professor, according to the letter of appointment. Almost immediately, she said, she began pinpointing disparities between the men’s and women’s athletic programs. Most noticeable were the disparities in the coaching staff, Atkinson said. She said that the women’s teams needed more full-time positions, and that the women’s facilities, such as locker rooms, needed upgrading. More : query.nytimes.com |