When MSU cut the men’s gymnastics team at the end of the 2000-01 season citing Title IX compliance, Jonathan Plante could have sat back and shut up.
But Plante’s just not that kind of guy.
The former MSU gymnast researched Title IX. He disputed the administration’s claims that cutting his program would help the university comply with the gender equity law. He scheduled meetings with anyone who would listen and rallied support for his team, which ended its final season with a sixth-place finish in the team finals at the NCAA Championship.
It didn’t work. Ultimately, he says no one would listen, and his stint as a Spartan competitor was finished, over, done with.
“We were screwed,” he said. “Left, right, forward, backward, you name it.”
So he transferred to Illinois to save his last season of eligibility. And he took his desire to right Title IX’s wrongs with him.
Plante and other former MSU gymnasts have driven across the country to take part in the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission for Opportunity in Athletics town hall meetings.
The 15-member commission is collecting information on Title IX and will file a report and recommendation to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige by Jan. 31 detailing what changes - if any - should be made to Title IX interpretation.
The men hope by telling their story, the commission will find good reason to tweak Title IX to thwart the trend of cutting men’s teams.
Going into the 2000-01 season, the Spartan gymnasts had solid recruits and a positive outlook. But at the end of the 1999-2000 season, former Athletics Director Clarence Underwood told the team its days as a varsity squad were over, Plante said.
Administrators tried to cut the team in spring 2000, then allowed it one more year because it was too late for anyone to transfer and save eligibility, Plante said.
And the decision was final, Plante and other gymnasts say. Plante points to an April 24, 2000, memo to the MSU Board of Trustees from university spokesman Terry Denbow that details the reason the team would be dropped after the 2000-01 season.
The memo, which Plante obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with The State News, says the “principles involved” with discontinuing men’s gymnastics were complying with Title IX, as well as MSU and Big Ten commitments to gender equity and fair opportunity.
It goes on to highlight areas MSU has succeeded in creating gender equity - participation numbers, additional grants-in-aid and the quality of life enhancements.
But the memo says because of “two crucial trends” - an increase in the proportionality gap between enrolled undergraduate women and men at MSU and stricter monitoring from the Office of Civil Rights - the drop was necessary and that increasing the women’s rate of participation by two percentage points would help MSU comply with Title IX.
All publicly funded schools must have participation rates of male and female athletes that comply with Title IX, and the most popular solution is proportionate ratios of male and female undergraduates to athletes.
The administration claimed the ratios were not proportionate. Cutting men’s gymnastics and adding a woman’s varsity sport in the $250,000 budget range was the memo’s answer.
But the gymnasts, who attended later board meetings and obtained the memo, did the math and became confused. The memo says that undergraduate female enrollment had grown from 51 to 53.7 percent, and therefore the university needed more female athletes to comply with Title IX.
It’s unclear where those numbers came from because, according to MSU’s 2000-01 Higher Education Act Report, 52.2 percent of athletes and 53.6 percent of its undergraduates were female. That 1.4 percent difference is close enough to meet proportionality under Title IX.
Plante and his teammates were shocked - was the administration lying to them?
Plante and other gymnasts started making calls and met with several MSU administrators. Plante presented the numbers he had calculated and brought up several other issues.
He pointed out empty roster spots on women’s teams such as crew and track and argued that if every spot was filled, there wouldn’t be a need to cut gymnastics.
He reminded administrators that a gymnastics alumna had volunteered to endow three scholarships.
And he said he didn’t buy the story that there was unbalanced proportionality anyway - not with the numbers the administration presented.
“In short, they lied,” Plante said. “They knew what the issues were. In my meeting with (Associate Athletics Director) Shelley Appelbaum, she practically went through the roof. I think she saw me as a threat.”
Plante said Appelbaum brought up other reasons the team had to be dropped, such as scholarship numbers and budget issues. But at about $205,000 a year and 5.3 scholarships, Plante said his team cost the administration a “drop in the bucket.”
Appelbaum would not reply to questions from The State News regarding the men’s gymnastics team and issued a statement through athletics department spokesman John Lewandowski that said: “Michigan State University is deeply committed to providing equal opportunities to both its student-athletes and athletic programs. As an institution, the progress made in these areas has been significant, and it’s something we’re proud of.”
In the end, after rallying in front of the Administration Building, the team was never given a good reason for its drop, said Andrew Davis, a packaging junior and former gymnast.
“We went into the board room with the trustees,” Davis said. “But I don’t believe we were really listened to. Their minds were set as soon as they made the decision, and they were unwilling to work with us no matter what we did.”
MSU Trustee Dave Porteous said the decision was well-thought out by the athletics administration and that cutting a team is never easy.
“I don’t think anyone likes having to reduce a varsity sport, whether it’s men or women,” Porteous said. “In the case of men’s gymnastics, there were very few varsity programs across the country. I think the individuals and coaches who competed at MSU did a great job, they were very committed and hard-working, and they excelled, but the unfortunate reality is that only about 21 other schools in the country have that as a varsity sport. For me, that was what made it difficult to continue as varsity.”
As Porteous pointed out, this is not solely an MSU phenomenon.
According to a U.S. General Accounting Office report, 56 men’s gymnastics teams were cut from 1981-99. There are now only 17 varsity teams, and many other men’s sports have similar trends.
And because of those numbers, it’s one of the hottest topics at the commission town hall meetings. Many say Title IX’s true intent was never to cut men’s teams, but to ensure opportunities for everyone.
“I don’t think you should be able to become within compliance by cutting male sports,” Davis said.
To spread that message, Plante went to September’s meeting in Chicago, and Davis and a few other teammates drove through the night to the August meeting in Atlanta. They spoke at panel sessions, met one-on-one with some panel members and even were interviewed for a “60 Minutes” show in Atlanta.
At least one panel member, University of Michigan education Professor Percy Bates, remembers their story.
“I recall them coming to the microphone,” Bates said. “We got the feeling that this was a team feeling pressure and that they felt some part of it was created by Title IX.”
But organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation say men’s sports are not cut directly because of Title IX. Its supporters point out that proportionality is only one part of the three-part Title IX compliance test and that men’s teams don’t have to be cut to meet compliance.
On the other side, Katherine Kersten, senior fellow for Cultural Studies at the Center of the American Experiment, said nearly every school uses the proportionality prong as the interpretation for compliance - and that’s why reform is needed.
“The only thing they look at is numbers,” she said.
And the MSU gymnasts don’t want that method of compliance to cost anymore men their chances to compete.
“I have anger,” former MSU gymnast Nate Dotson said. “A lot of it is because something could have been avoided. I still don’t understand why our team was dropped, and I just have a lot of anger at the way the whole situation was dealt with.”
Krista Latham can be reached at lathamkr@msu.edu.
