Hot Take: Joanna Hoffman and Anna Baeth on Athlete Ally's Athlete Equality Index

Lindsay talks with Athlete Ally's Joanna Hoffman and Anna Baeth about Athlete Ally's Athletic Equality Index, which is an ongoing assessment of NCAA athletic departments' policies and practices around LGBTQ inclusion. athleteally.org/aei

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Lindsay: Hi flamethrowers, Lindsay here. I'm so excited to bring you this hot take featuring Joanna Hoffman and Anna Baeth from Athlete Ally. You'll hear me talk with Joanna first and then Anna about Athlete Ally’s Athletic Equality Index, which launched last week. It is an assessment of LGBTQ inclusion policies and practices at NCAA Division 1 athletic departments. I think you're really going to enjoy hearing about what the significance of this project is, the impact they hope it has, and, you know, how you even go about starting a project that is this extensive and what they learned from working on it. So, if you want to check out your school's AEI athletic equality index, you can go to AEI.athleteally.org. Right, joining me now is the great Joanna Hoffman, the director of communications with Athlete Ally. Joanna. Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down.

Joanna: Excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Lindsay: So let's just talk – what is the athlete equality index? And I know this is a project that Athlete Ally has done before. So my next question is how does the 2021 version differ? Because I know it's a little bit more interactive and extensive.

Joanna: Yeah. So, we first launched the athletic equality index – or we like to call it the AEI – in 2017. We did an updated version in 2019, then so those two versions were a comprehensive look at LGBTQ inclusion policies and practices at power five schools. This time around we wanted to go even further, so we expanded it threefold to look at all Division 1 schools. And rather than it being a printed report, we really wanted this to be an interactive tool. So, we decided to build a website, which has been an interesting experience. [laughter] But I'm glad that it's done. And the idea there being that we wanted it to be really easy for people to search their school or their alma mater and be able to see exactly where their school either is or isn't kind of meeting these standards around LGBTQ inclusion and be able to spread the word and call on their school to take action.

Lindsay: So what are the kind of top line findings here? Because they are not positive, right? [laughs] There’s some disappointing numbers here. Let's just be real.

Joanna: Yeah. I, and I think it's important because I think that, you know, I think that many of us, of course, we're relieved that we have a president now that believes that trans rights are human rights and that's huge, but I think it's important to recognize that that doesn't make all of these issues go away. There's still a ton of work to be done, especially on college campuses. And I think, especially just looking at the fact that this is a record breaking year for anti-trans athlete bills, and there's really a responsibility on schools to be modeling the kind of inclusion that we need to see in society as a whole. And as you said, what we have seen is…We have seen some things that are promising and some things that are not great. And so I'll start with the things that are not great, which are that less than 3% of LGBTQ student athletes in D1 schools are in fully inclusive environments.

I should say, that's beyond not great. That's horrible. More than 90% of schools don't have a fully inclusive trans athlete policy. And especially given, you know, what I just said about this being a record breaking year for state bills targeting trans athletes, that's just unacceptable, unconscionable. Really high numbers of schools don't even have fan codes of conduct or LGBTQ trainings that they're offering to their staff or their student athletes. And so, you know, those numbers are really staggering and they're upsetting, and I think they should be upsetting because the whole point is that we want people to be jarred into action here by seeing exactly where these schools are lacking. I mean, I think there's also good news in that, you know, there are schools scoring highly and scoring 100 that really really diverse and what kind of budgets they have and how big they are.

I think that just goes to show that you don't have to be an enormous school with a huge budget to make these changes. We had a story come out in Inside Higher Education where a faculty member told the reporter that a lot of the changes that bumped up their score took less than 30 minutes to make. It's really about, you know, writing these policies and putting them up on the website so that they're publicly accessible. There are changes that schools can be making that don't require a ton of resources or even time, but that make a huge difference in the lives of student athletes.

Lindsay: There's a lot of intersectionality in this topic, and we discuss that a little bit more with Anna who did the research on this, but I want to focus in with you on these trans inclusion issues, because as you mentioned we are at a crisis point I believe in the recognizing of trans people as human beings and people using sports and particularly women's sports as a way to try to push trans people out of society altogether, it seems. So, as you mentioned, on the federal level things are getting better, but on the state level it's a non-stop onslaught. Then again, the NCAA does in theory have a trans inclusion policy. So I guess my question, which is rambling, is what role do the individual schools, what authority do they have when it comes to trans inclusion, while it seems others, the state levels and conferences and the NCAA as a whole are still trying to figure their stuff out? Like, is there a way to provide a safe space for trans athletes in today's environment?

Joanna: Yes. And I think we have examples of what that can look like. Now on the homepage for the AEI, we share a video from a high school wrestler named Aryn Bucci-Mooney, who talks about what a difference it made for him to have a coach who respected his pronouns, who talked to the team about inclusion, who made it clear from day one that the team was going to be a safe and inclusive space. That makes a huge difference, especially in athletic diverse environments which, as I know you know, are historically dominated by straight cis white men and who are making a lot of these decisions and who are setting a tone for what the culture of that team or that sport or environment is going to be.

So, I think having a coach who not only says they're going to uphold inclusion but actually walks the walk and makes that a part of team culture, that goes such a long way. And I think beyond coaches, I mean, I think having policies that…I think obviously it's better to have a trans inclusion policy than none at all, but I think our ideal is one that really that really emphasizes how important it is for trans student athletes to be able to participate based on their gender identity, that doesn't set up these roadblocks in place for them, and that really keeps in mind just this basic tenet that access to sport is a human right, that we all deserve to play the sports we love and that trans athletes do not have an inherent advantage. And even though this wasn't the question you asked, just to say that it is not only possible to champion girls’ and women's sports and to include trans athletes, but it's something we all should be doing.

Lindsay: Thank you so much, Joanna. Is there anything I didn't ask that you want to point out about this work and this report and kind of maybe what the next steps are?

Joanna: Whether you're a current student or you want to check out your alma mater score, you can do so at AEI.athleteally.org. If you're happy about your score then celebrate that, and if you're not happy let your school know and speak out about the changes that you want to see.

Lindsay: Joining me now is Anna Baeth of Athlete Ally. She is the research director there. Anna, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on getting out this athlete equality index. I know it must've been an incredibly heavy lift. As the research director, when you're going into a project like this, where do you even…Where do you begin?

Anna: Great question. So, admittedly, I started with Athlete Ally about two years ago, and I would say I was very familiar with women in sport. I did my doctorate at the Tucker Center for research on girls and women in sport. But I wasn't super familiar with the LGBTQ community and what LGBTQ justice looks like in collegiate sport in particular. So, the way that we sort of have gone about this project, we were really looking for a research endeavor that would give us more insight into what exactly was happening for LGBTQ student athletes in Division 1 sport. But we also wanted a project where we could really invoke some social change. So, the way that we did that, essentially, we looked through a bunch of research on different factors that influence LGBTQ student athletes. After doing that we went through all of those factors and said, okay, so of all of these influencers, what is actually within the control of the athletic department? If we're talking about policies or practices, what can they do, no matter the institution – size, budget, location – and then we whittled it down to these eight different factors. After that we then had the really fun job of looking through every NCAA Division 1 athletic website to see whether these factors were actually being met.

Lindsay: So what are those eight factors? 

Anna: Yeah. So, we have four policies and four practices. I am going to try and give you like the Twitter version. But we'll see how far I get. So, a non-discrimination policy is the first one. We're looking for a non-discrimination statement. Then we're looking for a trans inclusion policy focused specifically on trans varsity student athletes. Then we look for a sexual misconduct policy and then a fan code of conduct. The four practices that we look for are LGBTQ educational resources. So, whether the athletic department provides resources to their student athletes. This doesn't mean that the athletic department has to write those resources, but that they do need to share them. We look for a partnership between the athletic department and the LGBTQ center on campus, or if there isn't an LGBTQ center, some sort of LGBTQ organization. And then finally, we look for a pro-LGBTQ inclusion training for athletic staff and a pro-LGBTQ training for athletes.

Lindsay: That was very good. That was definitely the Twitter version. You have got that down pat, [laughs] so good work there. That helped a lot. When you're looking for these, was there anything that was surprising to you, maybe about the way that athletic departments present this information? How accessible it is? What it's like to navigate this website? Like, I guess if you're putting yourself in the shoes of, you know, a prospective recruit or a parent who wants to make sure that their child is going to be safe.

Anna: Yeah. I mean, perhaps unsurprising, these details are not easy to find, right? I mean, I think the bottom line is most athletic departments, at least in…So, we also talk with, we try to communicate with every Division 1 athletic department and most athletic departments when I talk to them say, well, we're inclusive. We have these policies, we do these things. I say, well, I can't find it anywhere. I mean, you might be doing it, but it's not accessible. Right? And I think that's the biggest divide. So, I would say that's the biggest issue.

One surprising factor, or I guess two really: first, the most prominent policy that we find is sexual harassment and sexual misconduct policies. This isn't really surprising because the NCAA in the last two years has mandated that every Division 1 institution educate their staff and athletes around sexual misconduct, but still we're looking at less than 40% of schools who actually put that out to the world to say that we're doing this training. When it comes to trans inclusion that's really where I think we see the biggest lift for these institutions. And again, it's sort of a similar policy in that the NCAA has guidelines for trans inclusion, and we know that every Division 1 athletic department must abide by those guidelines to compete in a championship. And yet very very schools actually have a public-facing trans inclusion policy.

Lindsay: And I mean, especially with what's going on on the state level which we talk about on this podcast so much, and we're going to discuss more with Joanna Harper, but it's so important. Like, you think of just the importance of letting athletes know where you stand on this because everyone else is letting their opinion be known.

Anna: Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I think the bottom line is when it comes to trans inclusion policies in the United States, particularly for athletes, it is sort of a motley landscape, right? So first of all, the federal policy is unclear, but also in addition to that, the way that the federal policies are enacted, particularly around Title IX is it depends on the administration. So, the way that Title IX was enacted under Obama was very different than how it was enacted under Trump, is very different than how it's we hope going to be enacted under Biden. So that's problematic, but then of course you have these state level policies. And then on top of that, you have these institution policies. So, our thinking is, hey institutions, just bear the brunt of this, stand up, stand up for these policies and protect your students no matter where they live.

Lindsay: Why was it important for you all to include fan codes of conduct in this?

Anna: Yeah. So, when you talk to sports fans, they will say the most homophobic space in sports is in the spectator stands. So, even more than a men's locker room. I think for most of us, when you go to big time sports events, you hear comments, you know, whether it's homophobic, it's racist, it's sexist, whatever it might be. But we wanted to ensure that fans and student athletes and referees and coaches, et cetera, all felt comfortable during a competition.

Lindsay: Yeah. I think that's a really important. What makes a good policy, when you're researching? Like, what counts as an actual policy? Does that question even makes sense? [laughs] Like, how do you even kind of define that?

Anna: Yeah, so, I would literally…Every NCAA policy, and every division one policy. But what I would say makes a great policy is when an institution goes above and beyond just putting words on paper. So, what that most often looks like is consulting with student athletes, consulting with the community – and this is particularly true of trans inclusion policies. If you look at, say, there are a couple I’ll point to: Stanford, Loyola, Maryland. These institutions have great policies. And the reason that they have great policies is that the consulted with trans student athletes on what they needed in these policies.

Lindsay: That's so important. I have to say, I was a little surprised looking at the leaderboard now. Unlike past additions of the athlete equality index, I know this is kind of a rolling summary, like you want to, I guess, be able to update it as schools change. Is that kind of the point of it, to make it open source? So, in that we don't necessarily have a list of, you know, the top 10 or anything like that, but you do note that there are only a handful of institutions who have a score of 100. Those are Ohio State, Boston University, Kent State, University of Miami, University of Southern California, University of Arizona, George Mason University, University of California Davis, the University of Illinois at Urbana, Champagne, and the University of Pennsylvania.

And then we have the conference overall with the highest AEI scores being the Pac-12. Of those schools we just mentioned and shouted out, were the schools that had the most inclusive policies and were doing the most work, was it easier to find that information for those schools? Like, could you tell via their website and just be the way they presented things that they prioritized this more heavily?

Anna: Absolutely. Yeah. That's the biggest difference. So, when we conducted the AEI in the past, we were really looking for policies and practices of any kind. So, if an institution said to us, yeah, we follow that the NCAA’s trans inclusion policy, we would say, great, you get points. This year we said, no, that's not enough. This needs to be accessible. Anybody needs to be able to find it. We want you to stand up and step up as allies in this space. And that's really the biggest difference in terms of the scoring. But I would for each of those institutions, if you were to just Google the name of the school, athletics, LGBTQ, you are going to find something on how inclusive are, that's the big difference. And I think often it depends on the institution on how they do that, but a couple of great examples: U Penn, Illinois, you can just look up their diversity and inclusion athletic sites, and they will state directly where they stand on, not just LGBTQ inclusion, but all forms of inclusion.

Lindsay: Well, are there any final thoughts or final kind of takeaways that you have from doing this research?

Anna: Listen, I'm a college coach. I believe that people can learn evolve, grow change, right? And I think we've seen it this year, particularly when it comes to some aspects of gender equity and NCAA Division 1 sport. I would love to see similar change when it comes to LGBTQ inclusion, at least via policies and practices of these departments. And it's entirely possible with the AEI. Anybody can do this. Now it's just time to make it happen.

Lindsay: Thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure.

Anna: Thank you.