Same Punishment For A Different Crime?

Pat Griffin’s blog about being LBGT at BYU brought up many interesting thoughts in my head that I feel are usually over looked. While Davies was a star athlete on the basketball team at BYU, which made him a public representative of the school, coming from a male dominant society, it was crazy how the media attacked him so much. I completely agree that he should be punished for his actions for violating the honor code, but I feel like the media usually tries to tell a different story when star, male athletes get into trouble.
For example, the media made Tiger Woods seem like the bad guy after his scandal became public and they were able to do that because he of his race. But with the recent Brett Favre controversy, they tried to cover up the situation and still make him seem like the all-American white male. They put more blame on the woman in the situation, which is another surprising thing I find about this story.
The only thing that is mentioned about the girl is that she was Davies’ girlfriend. Being from such an honorable school and an important figure in athletics, you’d think the media would try and take the attention off of him and place a lot of the blame on the female. However, he was the one that admitted it, therefore he was punished.
Another interesting thought that came to me while reading about BYU’s honor code is that if it was a different violation, such as Davies drank caffeine; would he still be in the same amount of trouble? Would he have been suspended from the basketball team? And would the media have even spotlighted the story as much as they have?
As far as the LBGT at BYU, I personally don’t feel that they would be treated any differently than a hetero male or female at the school. I agree that it would be hard to come out in an institution built off of those values, but as it was stated in the blog, the students know what they are committing to when they enroll at the university. Because the honor code doesn’t say anything about being straight or gay, I feel that the school is not discriminating against anyone’s needs or wants.

For The Right Reasons?

It is easy to simply look at decisions and final outcomes when grading universities' choices to comply with Title IX policies, but that's just the thing, quite often decisions are made only out of compliance and not out of any personal or real beliefs. A perfect example of this is in the case of San Diego State University and some of their recent choices involving female athletic opportunities. On the Title IX Blog: No Sand V-ball in San Diego, it says that SDSU had plans in place to add women's sand volleyball and lacrosse teams in order to decrease the gap in scholarship dollars between male and female athletes. But SDSU has seen its number of enrolled female undergraduates decline in the last few years, therefore the university believes that it can bridge the gap in scholarship dollars by adding only women's lacrosse, completely scrapping the proposed women's sand volleyball team. I think this says a lot about the application of Title IX and its rules to college athletics. Sure, SDSU is adding a women's athletic program and is subsequently giving women more athletic opportunities, but this is being done purely in compliance with scholarship guidelines that have been set in place. I don't mean this to be a personal attack on SDSU, but their choice to add women's lacrosse says nothing about their feelings towards equality between male and female athletics, but much more about their desire to not be reprimanded by the NCAA for not following rules and regulations.

This situation reminded me very specifically of a hypothetical situation in the George F. Will reading, A Train Wreck Called Title IX, in which a school decides they will have 200 athletic opportunities for their students. They have 100 girls that want to play sports and 1,000 boys that also want to play. Due to equity laws, 100 opportunities must be given to both the men and the women. Therefore, one hundred percent of the women are satisfied, while only ten percent of the men can be involved. This example shows how many of the rules are not so much about fairness, but visible equity. Do things look like they are even? Does it seem like all parties are receiving the same opportunities? Sometimes it feels like these are the things that are of concern and not really whether or not all parties are actually satisfied.

BYU digresses, Maryland progresses

Normally, I admire universities that honor tradition and history, especially in sports. So many schools and athletic departments are misguided by winning trophies, making money and acting like a business, rather than developing young student-athletes.

However, in the circumstance of former Brigham Young University basketball player Brandon Davies’ dismissal from the team for violating its Honor Code, I feel like BYU is incredibly ignorant. In Pat Griffin’s blog post “Being LGBT at BYU,” she discusses Davies’ situation. He is not LGBT, but the BYU Honor Code has a section on homosexual behavior: it is “inappropriate,” as are “all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.”

Honor Code? More like Dis-Honor Code. By not recognizing homosexual students and/or athletes on its campus, BYU is a joke of a

I understand that these rules have been in place for a long period of time, and that they mean a great deal to the institution, but it seems like the school really needs to reevaluate this document. Time passes, things change, the world evolves. Rules that were applicable when this code was created may not be appropriate

Reading the section of the Honor Code regarding homosexual behavior honestly makes me feel ill. I can’t believe a school could be so hypocritical. As Dr. Griffin said, it is a violation of the code for two students of the same sex to hold hands (displaying homosexual feelings of intimacy) but a heterosexual couple would actually have to have intercourse to violate the code.

I also understand that students and student-athletes willingly sign this code when choosing to attend school at BYU. But one thing is for sure—if I were gay, there’s no way I would be enrolling there.

The institution is suffering from a lot of negative publicity from this incident. We have talked about hegemonic power in class, and I think this situation is being controlled by it. LGBT issues like this one are constantly looked at from the dominant ideology of the population (and mass media), maintaining power and consent in those dominant opinions.

I compare this situation to the one in Emily Badger’s article “In the Spirit of Title IX of our textbook (p. 348). The University of Maryland is adapting its athletic policies to coordinate with the times, rather than sticking to outdated ideas. It is fighting the NCAA and the Office of Civil Rights to promote its cheerleading team to varsity sport status in order to grant these athletes scholarships. I believe that spirit squads (cheerleaders, dance team and mascots) should be considered varsity athletes, because they practice everyday, in-season and out, weight train, sustain injuries, perform at athletic events and compete in their own competitions as well. Not to mention they balance classes, jobs and social lives like every other student-athlete.

Nearly every university does not consider cheerleading a sport. Something tells me that BYU and its old school policies would have no tolerance for giving power to spirit squads like Maryland is doing. I think this type of progress should be celebrated, and that BYU should update its “Honor Code” to include a large group of people instead of alienating them.

by Robbie Lehman

Female High School Wrestlers

We talked about the girl who made it into the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament a few weeks ago in class, but I've been thinking more about it lately and tried to take different perspectives the issue as a whole rather than this individual case.  In this case, Joel Northrup defaulted instead of wrestling against Cassy Herkelman.  Northrup explained that it is against his religion for a boy and a girl to engage in that type of activity. Northrup is definitely justified for sticking to his religious beliefs, especially on a stage like the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament. Herkelman understood Northrup's decision, so no harm no foul. But there are still many complex factors in the issue of intersex competition, especially in a contact sport like wrestling.  I believe girls should be able to wrestle against boys if there is not a girls wrestling team for them to participate in. However, many males feel uncomfortable wrestling against girls. I think peer pressure has a lot to do with this. If a male beat a female in wrestling, most people would not think much of it because they expect the male to win.  If a female beats a male in wrestling, the male becomes known as they guy who lost to a girl. I want to just point out that this most likely is not how everyone thinks about this situation, but I have heard a lot of stories about a girl beating a guy in wrestling and every one of these stories is followed up by how weak or girly the male is. On the flip side, girls should have equal opportunity in sports and if there is not a girls team, they have no choice but to wrestle boys. I think people should be more open to females wrestling and they should focus on the accomplishment of females progressing in a male dominant sport rather than how bad the guy who loses to a girl is. I was glad to see two females make it to the state tournament this year, and I hope that more female wrestlers succeed and maybe inspire more females to feel comfortable participating in any sport that they like. Maybe one day females will even have their own wrestling teams where there are enough female wrestlers that they can compete with each other.

Title IX: A Long Process

After reading “Booster Club Can’t Pay Football Athletes’ User Fees” in the Title IX blog, I immediately thought of one of our readings from class, “Title IX Media Helper.” The blog post is about a booster club called “The Touchdown Club” in Massachusetts that wanted to use its fundraising proceeds to help minimize the fees for playing on the football team. School and city officials in Haverhill denied the club’s request stating that it violated Title IX because it did not benefit boys’ and girls’ sports equally.

Over the last few weeks we have been reading a lot about Title IX and its successes and failures. (Mainly failures) However, this story shows that Title IX has definitely had some success in helping to make sport an equal opportunity for boys and girls. In our reading it lists a variety of questions and answers about Title IX, one of these questions being about booster clubs. It states that “if the school permits an individual or group to donate funds for the benefit of a specific gender or sport, it must also make sure that benefits and services are equivalent for both sexes.” (Women and Sport in the United States 329) The Haverhill school district definitely read this because they took a step towards equality in sport by denying the club’s request.

In the blog, the writer talks about a possible solution for where this money should end up. They say how it should go to the low income student athletes, no matter the race, sex, or sport. This seems like a very good idea because it helps the students who really do need the money, while not discriminating against sex.

After reading multiple articles about Title IX for class, I was coming to the conclusion that it has not been working. However, after seeing this story it appears that Title IX is working (rather slowly) and should hopefully lead to full equality for men and women’s athletics in the future.

BYU Honor Code

This past week major news surfaced when Brigham Young University one of the top ranked basketball teams in the country kicked off Brandon Davies, the team's leading rebounder after he admitted he had premarital sex with his girlfriend. Tim Tebow and Amare Stoudemire made supportive comments on Twitter after this. Tebow, a very religious person himself was more understanding of BYU's Honor Code policy, which even prevents students from drinking tea or coffee something that would probably be unthinkable here in Iowa City. Still its BYU and the Honor Code is something every student signs before they enroll at the university. Amare's comments via Twitter were more derogative and he seemed to not care about the school's religious background or policy. He was happy Davies was just "having fun" and thought it wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately for the BYU basketball team, Davies is gone for the rest of the season for having sex a feat that seems pretty pedestrian in society today. Going to Iowa that seems completely weird because Iowa basketball has gone through the Pierre Pierce sex scandal. Anyway as for a LGBT athlete going to school at BYU this is what the Honor Code has to say about that. “Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code

BYU honor code & homosexuality

Two blog posts, one from Pat Griffin's LGBT blog and another from Outsports, both discuss the recent situation with Brigham Young basketball player Brandon Davies being dismissed for the team for having sexual relations with his girlfriend. They also discuss and speculate the possibility and experiences of a homosexual student-athlete at BYU.

As far as we know, there haven't been any — at least that have come out publicly. As both posts touch on, such a person would probably risk being removed from their team and possibility the University, let alone face the ostracism that would come with being gay at a Mormon school that imposes a strict honor code upon its students. (As a side note: I have no problem's with BYU's honor code, since students agree to it before they attend the school.)

Thus, with those possible consequences in mind, it's not surprising at all that no athletes have publicly come out as homosexual at BYU.

The following comment is from a BYU student who responded to the Outsports blog post that identifies as homosexual:
"I’m confident that no athlete will come out anytime soon. At least, not if they want to play. Based on my experience, BYU would clamp down on anyone who came out ridiculously fast, whether they had broken the honor code or not. Even if BYU didn’t take any action, their fellow students certainly wouldn’t be up for the idea of a gay athlete representing the school."

This type of a reaction really wouldn't surprise me either. Rarely do athletes in general come out as homosexual and risk losing playing time, being outcasted, and more, let alone athletes at a school like BYU. The University — and the Mormon religion itself, obviously — is very conservative and it's hard to predict what kind of backlash would be in store for a student-athlete that was openly gay. My guess is it wouldn't be good.

Is Cheerleading a Sport?

In her article In the Spirit of Title IX, author Emily Badger describes the University of Maryland’s decision to promote part of its cheerleading squad to varsity in order to create more scholarships and playing opportunities for other female athletes on campus. Badger explains this is deemed necessary because “the 1972 legislation mandated equal opportunity for women in all federally funded education programs” (Badger 350). In order to assess this problem and make the men’s programs content, certain Maryland faculty members suggest creating 12 cheerleading scholarships and 8 water polo scholarships so the men’s programs will be given 20 scholarships when the funding is available. Some argue against the idea because they don’t acknowledge cheerleading as a sport. “I couldn’t believe they were considering cheerleading as an actually sport,” says the president of Maryland women’s ice hockey club team who feels it would be more logical for Title IX to recognize ice hockey as a sport rather than cheerleading. This brings up the question “what is a sport?”

In order to differentiate competitive cheer from its counterpart, Maryland decided to divide its cheerleading squad in two so that one team will cheer at games while the other team will compete solely at competitions emphasizing gymnastics and eliminating cheer (Badger 352). The team traveling to competitions will receive scholarships, new uniforms and priority registration for classes. This is one effort attempting to convince the Title IX representatives that cheerleading can be considered a sport. Maryland’s cheerleading representatives and coaches are optimistic about the idea and believe it will work because it is a sensible modification to Title IX.

In Kris’ article Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk: Cheer is here from the Title IX blog page, she discusses a different approach to give cheerleading Title IX recognition. She explains the USA Cheer team’s announcement of creating a sport called STUNT with the intent to meet NCAA standards for an emerging sport as well as Title IX’s standards as to what constitutes a sport. She explains the “National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association, has partnered with USA Gymnastics in an attempt to give competitive cheerleading sport status at colleges and universities.” USA Cheer recently competed in their first STUNT competition and it was a huge success.

“This competition was a huge success for USA Cheer and STUNT…STUNT is becoming increasingly more popular and important in communities across the country," said USA Cheer Executive Director, Bill Seely.

A Leader Passes On

As history has shown, there is always one great motivator behind a movement. In women’s golf and the protection of LGBT, Betty Hicks was that person. She paved the way for a women’s golf league as well as provided support to those who are openly lesbians athletes. Sadly, she died at the age of 90 in late February. Like all greats, she left a legacy that will never be forgotten.

Around the time she was beginning her golf career, women’s sport was in the midst of rapid change and she felt she had to play a role. Schools with women’s athletic programs were beginning to take shape and the thought of being called a lesbian athlete was sitting in the back of most females minds. Like many of the readings we have done as well as our class discussions have highlighted the fact that women were not supposed to exert themselves and were encouraged to basically do less. Luckily, Betty came along and became a big advocate and role model for women athletes. She was the first female athlete to publish an article about lesbian athletes. I wanted to learn more about her so I researched her on google and found that she was a huge activists in the feminist movement. She worked hard to establish an agenda for females in the world of sports. It is sad to see somebody like this pass on because we need more leaders that are proud to step up and help the cause. Her movement helped women get past the Victorian Era struggles of womens rights

Not So Happily Ever After

Imagine this, you are a professional baseball player, you just went to the world series, you are in your twenties with many more years of baseball ahead of you, or so you think. The post " Out: The Glenn Burke story" on Pat Griffins LGBT blog was both touching and extremely disheartening. Before reading this post I had never heard of Glenn Burke much less his story. Glenn Burke was with out a doubt an amazing baseball player with a promising career but more importantly he was a charismatic and kind man who was well liked and respected by his fellow Dodger teammates. Unfortunately his career was prematurely ended at the young age of 2, and why was his promising career abruptly ended? He was gay, although he didn't come out publicly until after he had retired, it was openly known through out the baseball community because he didn’t hide who he was nor did he flaunt it. Mind you he was a black baseball player in the 1970's a time when race was a cause of tremendous turmoil, yet his sexuality triumphed racial discrimination. Burke was so secure of who he was, which made the owner of the Dodgers Tommy Lasorda so insecure that he offered him 75,000 dollars to marry a woman because he couldn't have his star player be gay. As we discussed in class, sport is associated with masculinity, it is where male values are validated and men are confirmed superior to women through the use of andocentric standards. Here was Glenn Burke, a superior athlete whose physical strength and skill exemplified " a male athlete" yet he was gay and other men in his field couldn’t handle it, how could a gay man be such a talented baseball player? To them it was just wrong. Which is truly sad, but what is more tragic is the fact that they had the power and influence in the baseball community to end his career, which is exactly what they did. After retiring early from baseball due to mistreatment and negative environment that took the fun out of the game he was once loved, Burke turned to drugs and alcohol as an escape. He ultimately died of complications related to AIDS in 1995, homeless on the streets of San Francisco. What could have become of his promising career and life? Unfortunately that we will never know because of ignorance and anti-gay discrimination. I can only hope that Glenn Burke’s story will help to educate people and prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future.

BYU: Symbolic Annihilation

Imagine a school in which consuming things such as coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol are against the policy. It is a rule to use clean language and be honest. It is also mandated that there be a strict dress code, mandatory church services, and the practice of abstinence. (BYU Honor Code) This is not any ordinary institution, this is Brigham Young University. This strict honor code is one that every student has to sign and abide by. In the last week, star basketball player Brandon Davies failed to comply with this code after admitting to premarital relations with his girlfriend. From an athletic standpoint, an individual usually must adhere to strict policy on what they can or cannot do. This however creates an even larger situation and debate for the athlete who identities as a LGBT. Part of the honor code professes to live a life of chastity and virtue. Although this is based off of religious beliefs, having this as a prerequisite to attend a university seems somewhat unusual. This can be tied back to the study of sport in the 19^th century and how sexual acts were seen as done by the weak and hazardous to one’s health. The code explicitly states that homosexual behavior (not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings) is against the honor code. In this portion of the honor code, clear discrimination can be seen against homosexual individuals. Even though, in relation to sexual action, the policy is enforced to heterosexual individuals, is still is unfairly instituted.

There is nowhere stated in the BYU honor code that heterosexuals need to refrain from forms of physical intimacy (not including intercourse) that expresses feelings. One argument against this entire issue is that the individuals that go to this school know what they are getting themselves into. They came to the school, are being given scholarships, and should adhere to the given administrative policies. However, from the broader spectrum, the policy can be seen as a blatant discriminatory practice. This somewhat reminds me of the issue with Renee Portland of Penn State. She was openly against allowing lesbians on her basketball team and showed this in her negative recruiting style. Even though Portland’s actions were personal and not administratively based, it shows clear discrimination against individuals identifying as LGBT. BYU’s honor code is very strict but because of this, it becomes a dangerous place to come out as a homosexual. In a report by ESPN (Article), it states how Amar’e Stoudemire and Tim Tebow both support Davies. Tebow claims that everyone makes mistakes while Stoudemire claims to let the kid have fun. Something that came to mind for me was what if a homosexual athlete was to be kicked off of a BYU athletics team. Would there be professional athletes coming to their defense? As we have seen in class, to identify one’s self as a homosexual athlete puts that individual in a significantly different situation than those who are the heterosexual norm. This fact is the reason that many players choose to keep their sexual orientation a private matter. If a player does choose to come out, this could compromise their role, identity, and relationships on the team. BYU walks a fine line in covertly annihilating the appearance of homosexuals in their school. There are not explicit rules about not being a homosexual but the rules are enforced and manifested in a way that puts these individuals in positions to not enjoy a normal and regular life. Even though this whole argument has a religious basis, BYU attempts to symbolically annihilate homosexuals from their athletic teams and their campus in general.