Title IX issues for New Hanover County athletics

Athletic facilities in New Hanover County are under scrutiny. Changes are underway in order to comply with Title IX after a review by the Office of Civil Rights.

The list of violations is rather long, and Monday was the deadline for some of the violations to be addressed.

Title IX is all about equal rights and equal opportunities amongst genders. In a nutshell, whatever a boys team has, the girls team has to have as well.

In New Hanover County, Title IX became a hot button issue recently when the Office of Civil Review deemed the athletic facilities “not equal”. Currently, the OCR is conducting a Title IX compliance review of the New Hanover County High Schools.

At Laney High School, the boys’ baseball team used to have a spacious locker room. The girls’ softball team did not have their own locker room. They had to dress in a general P.E. locker room that’s shared by all girls at Laney.

To comply with OCR regulations, the Laney softball team now has their own Locker room after a wall was added, which cut the boys locker room in half.

Outside you can find other examples of Title IX. The Laney softball field was inferior condition wise to the Laney baseball field. Now the same company maintains both fields with equal attention.

Joe Miller is the athletic director for New Hanover County, a job he’s held for 15 years.

Joe said Hoggard High School has also made adjustments regarding their athletic facilities.

“Hoggard had some issues as far as softball and locker rooms and things like that. Basically we’re looking at square footage and there are some things that need to be in place with the money, the funding and the availability,” Miller explained.

New Hanover High School, the oldest high school in New Hanover County, has it’s own issues. “Probably the biggest thing with New Hanover High School is a lot of people don’t realize New Hanover is land locked school. New Hanover has no outside facilities other than what’s here at 13th and Ann, and there are no game venues here.”

Since the inception of the program, the field on 8th Street served as the home of the New Hanover softball team. In order to comply with Title IX standards, the New Hanover girls now play and practice at Noble Middle School, which is six miles from the New Hanover campus.

Then there’s Ashley High School, where there are few issues since the school is so new. “Ashley has no problems. The only logistic problem we have there is two teams sharing time on a certain field. Ashley has all the bells and whistles because it’s basically a brand new school,” Miller said.

Tomorrow, WWAY will take a look at accountability for the athletic facilities and funding.