Democracy Inaction

El Presidente Richard Davenport of MSU-Mankato doesn't care what students at his university say. He's dumping men's swimming, even though students voted earlier this month to pay extra to keep the sport. Read more here.

On April 12 Minnesota State Mankato students, in an advisory referendum, voted 1,796 to 1,287 in favor of raising student fees by 75 cents per credit – approximately $20 per student per year – to keep the four sports programs viable for three years.

Don't think for a second that Title IX wasn't a factor here.

The only sport saved - women's tennis - has a roster of ten (10). Put them in the "plus" column.

The three sports dumped - men's tennis (9), women's bowling (15), and men's swimming (20) - means they lost a net of five (5) female athletes while dropping twenty-nine (29) men.

A department-wide gain of twenty-four (24) women doesn't sound like much, does it?

Wait! There's more!!

There's a reason they didn't dump the entire swimming program, folks.

While their bowling team of fifteen women sounds like a lot to lose, their women's swim/dive team has thirty-six (36) on the roster.

Now do you see why only the men's swimming program was on the chopping block?