Six Colby College female coaches file discrimination complaint

Athletic Recruits
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Has anyone talked to a coach at Colby about this? Doesn’t seem great.

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Based on the allegations detailed in abbreviated form in the article, it seems that an “investigation” is warranted.

An investigation may be as brief as requiring a responsive filing or as lengthy as a couple of years.

Interesting case because there are probably no revenue sports as found in Division 1 football & basketball programs which may be argued as a basis (justification) for wage disparities.

Interesting case.

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I wonder who leaked this action to the press? Glad they did, if the allegations are true. Here is a snippet:

“In the complaint, the coaches claim that when confronted with coaching salary discrepancies between male and female coaches, Colby officials said male coaches receive more robust compensation because they have been better at negotiating higher salary and benefits packages. The complaints also allege the women were told male coaches have a higher “market value.””

Not a good look for a school that just spent $200M on a new athletic facility.

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That was my reaction. You go to all the trouble to build this new athletic center and you launch it in the midst of divided athletic department with coaches likely looking for other jobs where the college could have probably solved the problem with a relatively small amount of money in the scheme of things.

The common advice is that your kid should choose where to go based on the school not the coach, but this sort of blurs that line.

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Although it is temping immediately to choose sides, as with all claims, it is best to reserve judgment until the Maine Human Rights Commission has performed its investigation and made conclusions. Reportedly the complaint does not allege specifics regarding salaries (“No salaries are cited in any of the complaints, and Hoffman — the attorney representing the coaches — declined to provide details.”). That said, the comments contained in the article could well be true, might not be true, or - most likely - fall some where in that continuum between absolute truth and absolute inaccuracy. It is the Commission’s job to sort that out. Remember, the USWNT’s claim for discriminatory pay initially was quite appealing, but the pay piece of the litigation ended up with dismissal.