In order to help community members evaluate gender equity in the Brandeis Athletics Department, Director of Athletics Lauren Haynie released the 2018-2019 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act report in an Oct. 15 email to students, faculty and staff. The report includes information about participation in athletics programs, coaches’ genders and salaries, recruiting expenses and overall expenses and revenue, all broken down by men’s and women’s teams.

“The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act is designed to make prospective students aware of a schools’s [sic] commitment to providing equitable athletic opportunities for its men and women students,” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s website. Co-ed colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid funding are required to submit EADA reports annually. EADA data is available publicly through the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis website.

EADA reports give the public “a snapshot of the general ways in which athletic departments ensure that student athletes who identify in both of the binary genders are experiencing the same levels of support,” Haynie explained in an interview with the Justice. The reports are especially useful for prospective students that are “considering one school versus the other, especially if they are relatively similar institutions” because it allows them to compare “the level of support that those schools are providing for their student athletes,” she added. For example, levels of assistant coach support can vary greatly between otherwise comparable universities.

The federal government does not mandate that schools meet certain standards of gender equity in the EADA reports, Haynie said. However, sharing this data with the University community and the public creates “a certain level of accountability,” she explained.

“Students and their families have become, and I think rightfully so, empowered because of the availability of data like this, to say, ‘My child, or my experience, is significantly different than another student’s experience in a different sport, because of their gender,’” Haynie said.

Haynie, who joined the University on Sept. 23, explained that the 2018-2019 report has also been helpful for her personally in summarizing key aspects of the athletics programs as well as highlighting potential areas for improvement.

Per Table 1 of the 2018-2019 report, the athletics program has 167 men and 166 women participants total.

The majority of the report is dedicated to the number and gender of head and assistant coaches for men’s and women’s teams, as well as salaries for coaching staff. Men’s teams’ head coaches are evenly split along gender lines, with three teams coached by women and four coached by men (Table 2). Women’s teams, in contrast, are mainly coached by women, with only one of the eight teams led by a male head coach (Table 3).

Haynie praised the high number of women head coaches for women’s teams. “Nationwide, there is a decline of women coaching women. So it’s actually a really positive thing that that’s not the case here,” she said.

Men’s teams’ 16 assistant coaches are all male (Table 4), while women’s teams’ assistant coaches are more divided by gender, with 11 male and six female coaches (Table 5).

Women’s teams’ head coaches make, on average, noticeably more than those for men’s teams, per Table 6. In the 2018-2019 report, head coaches for women’s teams made an average of $59,901 for their coaching duties alone, while men’s teams coaches made only $47,114 for the same measure. This salary difference is related to the length of time the coaches have been at the University, Haynie explained, with coaches of women’s teams having long tenures at Brandeis. “We actually view that as a really positive aspect of things, because they, we assume, … have decided to stay because of the level of support that they’re getting for their programs,” Haynie said.

The gap has widened — in the 2017-2018 report, available through the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis website, women’s teams’ head coaches made $55,584 to men’s teams’ head coaches’ $53,417 for their coaching duties alone. All head coaches are full-time University employees.

This trend is reversed for assistant coaches’ salaries: on average, assistant coaches for men’s teams make $19,131 for their coaching duties alone, while those for women’s teams make only $12,858 (Table 7). This discrepancy comes from the fact that men’s teams have more full-time assistant coaches and women’s teams have more part-time assistant coaches, Haynie explained. Per the 2018-2019 report, seven out of 16 (43%) of the assistant coaches for men’s teams are full-time employees, while only six out of 17 (35%) are full-time (Tables 4 and 5). “We know we want to add to our full-time assistant coach pool,” Haynie said. “That’s the only way that [salary] number will come up.”

One more gender disparity detailed in the report is among recruiting expenses for men’s and women’s teams. In the 2018-2019 period, $37,902 went toward recruiting students for men’s teams, while $26,328 went to women’s teams (Table 9). In contrast, recruitment expenses were more equitable in the 2017-2018 report, with $29,502 going to men’s teams and $28,553 going to women’s teams. Recruitment expenses include covering the costs of coaches or staff traveling to visit tournaments, paying for prospective students to visit campus who cannot afford the trip and subscribing to recruiting services that connect potentially interested students with coaches.

“Our goal is to have our numbers for 2019–2020, so what’s happening right now, much more closely mirror 2017–2018,” Haynie said, explaining that the department is not planning to accomplish this by taking money away from men’s teams, but by examining women’s teams funding.

The University spent $0 on athletically related student aid for men’s and women’s teams, per the 2018–2019 report (Table 8). 

The final section of the report is dedicated to overall expenses and revenues for men’s and women’s teams. Haynie highlighted the fact that expenses equal revenue, with both adding up to $4,732,118 (Table 10). “We receive our allocation from the University, we typically spend a little more than that and then we make up that difference by the ways in which we’re able to raise revenues,” she explained, noting, “The margins are really, really tight.”

The Athletics Department’s primary revenue stream is facilities rentals. The University rents out the Linsey pool and some athletics fields, although they prioritize making sure those facilities are available during the school year for current students. Revenue also comes from corporate sponsorships and donations from parents and alumni.