The Baldy Center Podcast

The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo

Spring 2023, Episode #32

Podcast recording date: 3/10/23

Host-producer: Simon Honig

Speaker: Shaun Anderson

Contact information: BaldyCenter@buffalo.edu

Transcription begins

Simon:

Welcome to the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast. I'm your host, Simon Honig. Today I am joined by Dr. Shaun Anderson. Dr. Anderson is an award-winning Associate Professor of Organizational Communication at Loyola Marymount University. He is an internationally recognized scholar that examines how sport has influenced business, politics, and society. He is also the founder of CSR Global Consulting LLC, which assists organizations in developing and implementing social responsibility initiatives. All right. I'm here with Dr. Shaun Anderson. Thank you so much for your time today.

Shaun:

Thank you for having me.

Simon:

Starting right off. I just want to ask you how you view the importance of the passage of Title IX.

Shaun:

You know Title IX is of course a very important piece of legislation. We think about it, it’s rather older, but it's something that has in many cases stood the test of time. For many who may not know it was actually an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course, that banned discrimination within organizations, but lawmakers felt that there needed to be a focus on educational institutions. And that legacy was rather broad, but what was a positive effect, I believe, after that was the increase of women in organized sport, playing sport at the college level, things of that nature. So it's an important passage.

Simon:

It's a short kind of passage, but it does hold a lot of power. In your opinion, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the law as it's written?

Shaun:

Yeah. So like you say, very short, I think it was under 40 words. Again, one of the strengths was of course, the push for the eradication of discrimination and the purposes behind the fact that any institution that was receiving federal funding could not receive it if it kept engaging in discrimination practices. Now, here's the thing, those are the positives, but it's been sporadic over the times of this passage. There’s been a lot of, I guess, selective discrimination, if you want to call it that, as far as what is considered the best things to handle. Over its time, there were even several people from certain organizations that said, well, okay, this is great for the college environment, but it trickles down to high school as well, where there was really no understanding of what was going on and how to handle those issues at that level. And so again, we still continue to see instances of sexual harassment and violence throughout the years of the passage of this. So it's very important, but there are still some things that need to happen in order to achieve equality.

Simon:

So, turning to you and your areas of research, can you give a short description of your area of expertise perhaps, and how you encounter or interact with Title IX?

Shaun:

Yeah. So the focus of my work is the intersection of sport and corporate social responsibility. So, of course, how can organizations be profitable, but also care about the needs of their stakeholders. So whether it's in this case the NCAA and its athletes, or in other cases, an organization and its employees, it's the customers and all of that. And so for me, I have taken upon the challenge, if you will, to test the use of CSR in sport and to test its success, because there have been several research studies that have been done relative to these areas. But recent complaints from other scholars are saying that yeah, sports organizations are putting these initiatives out there, but we can't measure them. We don't know the success of them. Again, it's like, how do we know if this is working?

And so for me, I'm currently working on a book that's developing a framework for sport organizations to use when creating and implementing CSR initiatives. And so the premise of this book stems from the United Nations and their sustainable development goals, and them saying that sports could come in and eradicate a lot of issues such as poverty, inequality, infrastructure, and women's equity. And so, again, they highlight the importance of sport, but no one knows its success. And so with this book, and if adopted by sport organizations and their decision-making processes, I'm sure that there will be some encounters of Title IX. Me and a couple of other colleagues are also working on a study that's looking at identity gap issues within sport organizations among women, whether it's women who are interns within sport organizations, all the way up to top levels and across professional sports and collegiate sports. And so again, we're looking to see, at least in our preliminary work, that there have been several instances where, of course, Title IX has been not useful, especially in the way that they cope with the day-to-day goings of work. And so, those are some of the things that I've seen that I'm sure I will continue to see as I put this work forward.

Simon:

So you're basically trying to come up with measurable indicators for the success of corporate social responsibility?

Shaun:

Correct. And if these initiatives are not proper, then the goal is to evaluate, revise, and reimplement. And to go away from just putting out these initiatives, like you would see a toddler throwing a spaghetti on the wall and hoping that these initiatives stick. Those are the things that we need at this point; we need to have tangible evidence, not just throwing things out there and just hoping that they work. And so that's the goal of this.

Simon:

Excellent. That's very interesting. You are obviously a scholar in the area, and you've spent a lot of time researching and learning about this subject. But how do you believe the public perceives Title IX? And what do you think is its legacy in the eyes of the average person?

Shaun:

Yeah, so we are approaching the 51st anniversary of this law. It's important, but I think what comes with a law such as this is the shifts in our society. So you're talking about the civil rights era, pre- and post-, where there was a society where they didn't want to go to war. Peace, love, right? Then there was the introduction of the Black Panther Party. And so all of these sorts of social movements over the last years have really shifted the way that we see policy. And the same goes with Title IX. We've seen documentaries about the success of women in sport because that seems to be the biggest talking point out of this law. But again, you have those detractors who then may say this is sort of reverse discrimination because it's taken away from the support of men athletes, and especially at the collegiate level, it's powerful. The legacy is powerful. It's murky, yet important for equality.

Simon:

So how would you like to see that kind of perception challenged these days? Whether it's through social activism or ending up being policy changes? How would you like to see that being changed?

Shaun:

I think a few years ago when we had March Madness, the women's basketball teams that were participating kind of gave us an understanding of where this law was at the time. When we saw the facilities that the men had relative to working out, it was a beautiful thing. But then when they showed theirs, it was virtually an empty room with a couple of dumbbells and being able to have the same type of participation. When they put that out to the media that made the NCAA say, okay, well we need to do something about this.

Simon:

Right.

Shaun:

So if we saw that, then that speaks to the volumes of, okay, we're going to put this message out here, but what can we get away with at the time that we don't have to put any more money towards for this whole thing of equality? And then that's where we get the term sports washing, and publicity stunts. As in to say, we're going to do and be a part of a certain cause, but it doesn't come to fruition, or it doesn't help anybody. And so the challenge would be, how could we make these organizations committed to equality, and in most cases nowadays, how do we properly define it and make commitments to it?

Simon:

So you think that on the activism side of it and athletics, you think that kind of comes through social reform and maybe pressure from media and social media, because these days, obviously everything's out there and once it goes on Twitter, it's up for everyone to see.

Shaun:

Sure

Simon:

But that's kind of where the pressure comes from?

Shaun:

Yeah, because the court of public opinion nowadays is very powerful like you mentioned. Thirty or forty years ago, organizations can make rules and changes, and pretty much people will be afraid to call them out and hold them accountable. But you cannot escape video footage. You can't escape reporting via social media where there may be a person who is a whistleblower or something, who has a million followers that says, okay, Title IX is here, but this university is not following through properly. You can't escape that anymore. So those types of activism aspects will work. But also that more face-to-face type of activism, like we've seen with Black Lives Matter, for example, the Me Too movement, the more Global Occupy Wall Street movement of 2008, those sort of things are crucial for, again, the necessity of equality within this realm. And so, as long as we can continue to see that progress through those types of activism, maybe we'll see things kind of become better over time.

Simon:

Do you see that as a starting point for policy reform as well? Or how do you think that that side of it would gain traction? I know a lot of times that it sometimes takes an event to occur for politicians to be like, all right, maybe we need to do something about this now. But, outside of some sort of event that really stirs things up, how else does policy reform come about in this area?

Shaun:

I think at this point, because like you say, we've seen certain instances of harassment, abuse, brutality, and the like, we are desensitized in many ways to those things happening, and then there's a reaction. But I think continued pressure on local officials all the way up to the federal level is crucial to policy reform, policy change. Becoming aware of the things that, let's say, for example, we're holding elections. What are these candidates actually fighting for? If it's something that's against what you're trying to fight for, then, of course you can't go for that candidate. I think that becomes the case at this point. And the thing is too, and I say this a lot relative to professional athletes, but I do believe that at some point there needs to be some type of attach to collegiate athletics, relative to if an athlete has an issue and they may not necessarily know the laws that are associated with it, that they can have a team of legal experts or some type of sociologist or someone who has the expertise to help them understand what it is that they're going through in order to strategically create something that leads to policy reform. I believe it could be done, but I think those are the steps that can get us there.

Simon:

That's actually an interesting point because some of the new Name Image and Likeness bills that are floating around, specifically the one in New York, does mention that schools should provide programs for the wellbeing of athletes and mental health resources and stuff like that. And they can be represented. And the school can't prevent them from being represented. But it's interesting on the women's sports side of things where, sure, everyone should have access to mental health services, but also other counseling services in the area of women's sports where there tends to be more harassment and those kinds of issues. So that's an interesting position on the NIL bills.

We talked a little bit before about the shortcomings of Title IX. They’ve been made obvious by some university policies across the nation. There are still men's programs that are still more funded than women's programs. There have been instances of some schools taking away other scholarship for women in other departments because of the women's sports have been getting that funding, and they're kind of diverting it instead. Which do you think pose the biggest threats to women's sports and women's collegiate education?

Shaun:

It's an interesting one. I think all of those are many of the challenges, of course, that are still faced. But I think one what’s actually going to take longer than most is the legislation regarding transgender athletes. And I say that because we know that Title IX is, again, kind of selective in the understandings of who to help and who not to help. And it comes to a point of these athletes wanting to participate in the sport in which they identify. But see, you have challenges with that. Because, for example, you had the legislation such as the Protect Women of Sports Act of 2020, which hasn't been passed, it's just been introduced. It's a detractor of that discrimination. And then you have the conversations on biological disposition, which gives parents of women who were biologically born women the opportunity to sue the NCAA if it allows a transgender woman to participate in that sport. And so, I think that's going to be a long time, associated with a lot of legal cases, a lot of lawsuits, a lot of appeals, and that's going to be something that's going to take, I believe, several years to even make an inch in the progress of it. And so, where does that leave these particular athletes? Do we continue to push for them to be able to participate in the sport that they identify? Do we create an entirely different sport section altogether, which some people have argued for? That remains to be seen. But again, it speaks to the deficiencies of Title IX, not necessarily the law itself, but how we define what's a discriminatory practice or not.

Simon:

Do you think that there's success to be found in amending Title IX? Or do you think it's an entirely kind of separate framework that needs to be created?

Shaun:

No, I think with any type of shift in our society, and we are seeing more shifts more frequently now than before, it could always give a refresher to Title IX in that sense. Because again, at its base, it’s great in theory in how we should move forward. But I think there needs to be something that allows for flexibility over time. We need to have certain standards and all of that, but just like the amendment to Title VII, I think we just need to see some progress with it moving forward. Even back to the transgender athletes, this is also a case of medical research. How does the understandings of the body, when an athlete transitions, how does that measure up to those again, who identify or who are biologically of this particular gender? I think it calls for more amending than it does creating a whole new thing altogether.

Simon:

So obviously the policy side goes through all these large sports organizations and eventually goes to legislation. But as a starting point, how can the NCAA, in your opinion, better support women's athletics?

Shaun:

Yeah, you think about the NCAA and its relevancy here over the last five years, it's really been challenged, particularly with the NIL passage with athletes, again, focusing on mental health and wealth being spread throughout this. The NCAA, in many cases, if it's going to remain relevant, it has to focus on, again, the mental health and the mental clarity of athletes, finding ways to where student athletes can feel as if they also are students instead of having athletics first. I've seen several athletes, I remember teaching when I was in my graduate program, receiving my doctorate, one student athlete that was fell asleep a couple times in class, and instead of just punishing the student, I just asked them to wait behind and talked to them like, are you okay?

And then this student just literally broke down crying just because they've never had a professor say, are you okay? And then they went on and explained all of the things that they have to go through, how they wanted to be in a certain major, but was told not to and was told to man up and take this and work hard and all of these things. And those are the things that the NCAA needs to focus on, because these athletes, who even go through injuries, concussions, things like that, are really tapped out. And you’re talking about 18 to 22-year-olds who are going through so much depression just to try to make a coach happy or an administrator happy. So the NCAA has to continue to challenge these things when it comes to their laws, their policies, and move it beyond these PowerPoint presentations to say, okay, we've introduced this, we should introduce that, without truly understanding how it is affecting these athletes.

Simon:

The NCAA probably has a large focus on their finances and how much money, obviously college sports make. The focus, in your opinion, should be more on the athletes themselves as students. A lot of them will be successful athletes. Not a lot of them will go professional, and therefore having a degree they want or an area of expertise to focus on. Do you think that the schools themselves would be of assistance in that area? I know that obviously schools have a similar financial interest in the success of their sports, but the students interact more with their school, with their coaches, schools, administrators, and professors and all that, more than the NCAA at large. What do you think the schools could do?

Simon:

Yeah. The schools are at the front of the line to challenge all of the issues that are going on. We're seeing now many institutions are at least in the sense of hiring practices or even other measures are eradicating their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategic plans. I'm at my institution here in Los Angeles, we've worked for a couple of years on DEI strategies and things like that, but there are other institutions, again, that are challenging that. What does that mean for Title IX at that point then? And what does that mean for the wellbeing of the athletes, again, when you are so close to them as an institution? As long as we continue to see the pushback in that realm at these institutions, it's going to continue to push for the amending of Title IX and other laws that are out there meant to supposedly eradicate discrimination.

The institutions along with the NCAA, like you say, again, are all about wealth building themselves. I remember seeing a commitment from an athlete at the University of Florida who was going to the University of Florida who was supposed to get a million-dollar NIL deal. And when that deal fell through this athlete, decommitted. We’re seeing all of these things, the politics, the economics, the sociology of it all sort of combining. And those would be the challenges of the institutions as well. The presidents, the athletics directors, the sports psychologists who are at these institutions. I know several sports psychologists at the university level who say that the continued challenge is the mental health and whether or not the institutions are even concerned about these athletes. So again, that remains the challenge.

Simon:

Is there anything else on the subject that you'd like to mention or talk about before we wrap up?

Shaun:

Yeah. We are in a point in time in our society where it's rather easy to point out issues, to talk about things that affect millions of people, not only in the organizational level but the educational level as well. I think in order for many of these initiatives to be successful, they must be evaluated. They must be implemented, of course, and revised if necessary. But there needs to be clear cut strategies that are based on the research that is necessary to understand what's going on. If we can get to that point and we can make some waves and progress, and athletes are important in that part of the infrastructure of that type of movement. But I think collaboratively working with legal scholars, those who understand organizations, those who understand sociology, anthropology, things like that, we can make some true change.

Simon:

All right. Dr. Anderson, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking some time to share your thoughts with us today.

Shaun:

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me.

Simon:

You just heard an interview with Dr. Shaun Anderson, an Associate Professor of Organizational Communication at Loyola Marymount University. This has been The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast produced at the University at Buffalo. You can learn more about the Center on our website: buffalo.edu/baldycenter. If you would like to share your thoughts on this podcast, tweet us @BaldyCenter or send us an email at baldycenter@buffalo.edu. I'm your host, Simon Honig. Thanks for listening.

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