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Thursday, August 27, 2020
Emails released on Thursday show an effort by top administrators at Brown University and powerful alumni strategizing on how to minimize the impact of the 1998 agreement which dictates participation in women’s sports.
The backdrop is a battle over cuts to Brown sports and compliance with a federal — and now nearly two-decade-old consent decree — on compliance with Title IX regarding women’s sports.
The emails show Samuel Mencoff, a billionaire co-founder of Madison Dearborn Partners, onne of the country’s leading private equity firms in the United States, expressing his frustration over the consent decree.
“Kill the Pestilential Thing”
More than 100 pages of emails and documents released by the RI ACLU show frustration at the highest level of the university to comply with the requirements of the federal consent decree and functionally linking the requirement to support women’s sports as the cause of the poor performance for Brown’s athletics.
“But here’s an idea. Could we use this moment, where anger and frustration, especially from track and squash, are intense and building, to go after the Consent Decree once and for all?” wrote Mencoff in an email to Brown Christina Paxson.
Paxson and Brown Athletic Director Jack Hayes announced cuts to nearly dozen Brown sports this year.
Mencoff, who serves as provost at Brown, went on, “Could we channel all this emotion away from anger at Brown to anger at the court and kill this pestilential thing. The argument would be that the Consent decree is forcing us [Brown] to eliminate these sports, and the court would be bombarded with emails and calls as we are now.”
In emails Mencoff voices frustration that Brown has the least number of male athletes in the Ivy League.
Mencoff is not the only member of the business elite in on the email exchanges.
Paxson, according to the documents, was focused on doing so in a way that would avoid riling up “the [Amy] Cohens of the world,” a reference to the lead plaintiff in the original 1992 lawsuit against Brown that resulted in landmark rulings against Brown. The lawsuit settled in 1998 when the school agreed to guarantee gender equality in athletics opportunities.
Alums Strategize to Minimize Damage
Goldman Sach’s Richard Friedman, a member of the Brown Corporation was involved in the discussion.
And, in another email, Kevin Mundt, managing director of Vestar Capital Partners, complained that he was being harassed by members of the Brown community opposed to the cuts of Brown sports programs.
“I really would appreciate the university getting these people off my back,” writes Mundt referring to Brown students, parents and alumni who oppose the elimination of Brown sports teams.
Brown defends its actions in the court case now in federal court and issued a statement but did not respond to questions about Mencoff’s emails.
“When neither the facts nor the law support their case, a party to a litigation sometimes resorts to rhetoric and invective. Today’s press release and accompanying documents in Cohen v. Brown exemplify that unfortunate approach, reflecting the continued efforts by plaintiffs’ counsel to use snippets from documents taken out of context to develop a public narrative in lieu of a viable legal claim. Brown has an exemplary record of providing varsity athletic opportunities to women, with a record that stands near the top among its peers,” writes Brown in its statement on Thursday.
“For decades, the University has met its obligations under Cohen — an agreement that established requirements not faced by any other institution of higher education in the country — annually reporting to the plaintiffs’ attorneys about compliance. At no time has anyone raised doubt about Brown’s commitment to complying with Title IX. The changes to the varsity roster lineup remain in compliance with Cohen, and if Brown’s varsity teams were able to compete this fall season, we would be in compliance for the upcoming academic year as well. We remain confident that the federal court judge, who, unlike plaintiffs, will apply the language of the consent decree and basic principles of contract law, will agree,” concludes Brown.
ACLU Takes Aim at Brown
The ACLU disputes the Brown claims and writes, “When we filed the motion to enforce the Court’s order in June, we expressed concern that Brown’s commitment to gender equity and its women athletes was insincere and simply window-dressing. Through discovery, we learned the unfortunate truth: Brown does not care. Brown would rather dismantle the entire process that it claims prompted the downsizing than provide its women athletes—its own students–the program required by law and by the Court’s order,” said Lynette Labinger, cooperating counsel for the ACLU of RI and the lead attorney in the original suit.”
According to the ACLU under the existing decree, if Brown eliminates any women’s varsity team, it must offer women and men student-athletes opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics within 2.25% points of women’s and men’s undergraduate enrollment rates. That measure cannot be met with Brown’s proposal to eliminate women’s varsity fencing, golf, squash, skiing and equestrian teams, while cutting only three men’s teams. Such cuts would result in a disproportionate impact on women’s representation in the Brown athletics program that runs afoul of the maximum gender disparity allowed under the original agreement.
“We proved Brown was violating Title IX over 25 years ago when it cut two thriving women’s teams for crass budgetary reasons,” concluded Leslie Brueckner, Senior Attorney with Public Justice. “This time around Brown doesn’t even have that excuse. We are going to keep fighting for these female athletes for as long as it takes.”
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