Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, is calling on the NCAA to launch an independent investigation into why women’s teams were so blatantly inferior to equipment from their male counterparts – and why it took a viral TikTok and national outrage for the association to act. at the.
The senator’s letter, addressed to NCAA President Mark A. Emmert, and obtained by BuzzFeed News, is the latest and most significant call for the NCAA to address the disparate conditions between male and female athletes in the March Madness tournaments.
“While the history of different levels of support and resources provided for men’s and women’s athletics is a longstanding problem, the main differences in the quality of the facilities and weight rooms, gifts and food provided to players and teams this year were an obvious one,” Smith wrote in his letter.
Smith called for an independent investigation to explain why the disparity occurred and to provide recommendations on how to avoid it in the future.
“Often women’s athletics are not supported or valued in the same way as men’s,” she wrote. “The NCAA must not act to reinforce these inequalities, but it must work actively against them.”
The outrage was triggered last week when photos of the men’s weight room appeared – complete with benches, weights and racks full of equipment – as well as those of a single rack of dumbbells and mats provided for the players.
Sedona Prince, an Oregon Ducks player, posted a viral TikTok about it.
The NCAA in first claimed that the difference in the equipment provided was due to lack of space – but athletes quickly pointed out that the only weight rack was in a large, empty room.
The opening statement only fueled the furious responses on social media, later prompting Dan Gavitt, senior vice president of basketball at the NCAA, to apologize to athletes and coaches on women’s teams for “dropping the ball in the weight rooms in San Antonio. . “
On Saturday, the female athletes had a room full of weight machines to use.
But the initial disparity only led athletes to show other ways in which men’s and women’s teams were treated differently throughout the tournament, from food to the gift bags provided to players.
Smith called these differences “very worrying”. She also pointed out reports that men’s teams were receiving the “gold standard” in the COVID-19 tests, while players on women’s teams were receiving antigen tests, which may be less accurate.
“Although both tests are important tools in screening for COVID-19, they should be used by female and male teams on an equal basis,” wrote the senator. “Together, these disparities present a clear picture of the devaluation of female players, teams and tournaments as a whole.”
The senator also criticized the NCAA social media accounts, which she said presented the March men’s tournament as the “main event” and the women’s games “as an afterthought”.