Letter to NCAA Cross Country Regional Hosts

Dear NCAA Regional Cross Country Championship Host School,

We, The Equal Distance Team, are advocating for gender equality in athletics. Our mission is to promote equal opportunity race formats for all genders. We write to request that your institution equalize the distances for all genders at the NCAA Regional Qualifying race you are hosting during the 2023 cross country season. It is our contention that continuing to host cross country events with different distances for men and women is a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of Title IX. We strongly urge you to equalize the distances at your cross country races going forward.

It is our understanding that you are set to host the NCAA Regional Cross Country Championships on a Cross Country course on your college campus. The men are scheduled to race 10 kilometers and the women 6 kilometers. Separate racing formats in which women race 4 kilometers less than the men is not equal opportunity and is a discriminatory practice.

When women step on the line for their cross country race on your campus, they will race only 60% of the distance that the men race. This does not provide equal athletic opportunities and experiences to the female athletes. This difference in race distances not only sends a message to female athletes that they are inferior to their male teammates, but it also instills a belief that they are less capable in the realm of collegiate athletics as a whole.

As you know, your institution uses federal funds to maintain and operate its on-campus cross country course where the NCAA races will be held, and it also uses federal funds on race day to pay for officials, coaches, and timing companies. As such, your institution is required to comply with the mandate of Title IX in hosting this race on its campus.

Title IX mandates “equal treatment,” which requires “equivalence in the availability, quality and kinds of other athletic benefits and opportunities provided male and female athletes.” Mansourian v. Regents of Univ. of California, 602 F.3d 957, 964 (9th Cir. 2010). But when female athletes toe the line on your college race course, they will race 4 fewer kilometers than the male athletes. This is not equal opportunity.

Offering women only a shorter distance for races based upon an assumption of their athletic capability–and not on facts–is impermissible gender discrimination. As the Court held in McCormick ex rel. McCormick v. Sch. Dist. of Mamaroneck, 370 F.3d 275, 293 (2d Cir. 2004), “a girl’s reach should exceed her grasp.” It has long been known that women are fully capable of racing longer distances, as they race 10km on the Track and at the World Cross Country Championships. And women are obviously allowed to run in marathons and ultramarathons. Therefore, there is no logical or legal justification for subjecting women to unequal racing experiences based solely upon their gender at the collegiate level. The difference in distances seems to be based only on misguided stereotypes about the strength of men and women, which is an impermissible consideration under Title IX. See Videckis v. Pepperdine Univ., 150 F. Supp. 3d 1151, 1160 (C.D. Cal. 2015) (“It is undisputed that Title IX forbids discrimination on the basis of gender stereotypes.”).

Moreover, your institution is a public university and, as such, must comply with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Using gender-based classifications to set unequal race distances for men and women is a violation of that standard. United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996) states “for a state policy providing differential treatment on the basis of sex to survive Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny, the state must offer an ‘exceedingly persuasive justification.’” There is no such “exceedingly persuasive justification” as to why women are racing shorter distances. As noted above, stereotypes about women’s athletic abilities as compared to men does not justify a different distance race. See Virginia, 518 U.S. at 533 (“[The justification for different treatment] must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.”). Women can and have been running 10k (and much longer!) races in other contexts (like on the track) for decades. In fact, being forced to race a shorter distance only perpetuates a stigma of athletic inferiority in female college athletes.

An equal distance 8km race was hosted last fall on the Saint Michael’s College campus and it was an immense success. The female runners said they felt “proud to finally be allowed to race the same distance as the men,” and they felt it was “great to finish the race and feel like their race was equally as valued as the men’s because of the equal length of distance, which is something they haven’t ever been able to feel before.”

Additionally, The Equal Distance Team has had major success equalizing the sport of Nordic Skiing. Last year, for the first time ever, the men and women both raced the 20km distance event at the NCAA Championships. Junior World Championships and World Cup races were also equalized. Three-time Olympic medalist Jessie Diggins said the following about skiing the first 50km World Cup race for women this past winter: "I think it absolutely is the right message we want to send to young girls all over the world that you work just as hard as the guys, you train just as hard, you should get to race the same exact races. Today, we got a chance to show that we absolutely can do this and it was awesome." The trend to equalize distances has taken hold, with nearly universally positive feedback.

We believe that your institution has committed to upholding the spirit and letter of Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment. In the same vein, The Equal Distance Team requests that men and women race equal distances for ALL cross‑country races on your campus going forward. Should you have any further questions, we would of course, be willing to discuss this issue with you.

Sincerely,

The Equal Distance Team

Molly Peters Founder of the Equal Distance Team and Head Women’s and Men’s Cross Country running and Head Women’s and Men’s Nordic Ski Coach at St. Michael’s College.

Lynn Jennings the 1990, 1991, 1992 World Cross Country Champion, as well as the 1992 Olympic Bronze medalist in the 10,000m.

Joan Benoit Samuelson the 1984 (and first) women’s Olympic marathon Gold medalist.

Kathrine Switzer the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon (despite an attempt to be physically removed from the course) and women’s winner of the 1974 NYC Marathon.

Molly Huddle is a 10-time NCAA All-American and former American record holder in the 5000m.

Ben True was 6th in the 2013 World Cross Country Championships and 7th in the 2021 NYC marathon.

Kara Goucher a three-time NCAA Champion, 2008 and 2012 Olympian and silver medal winner at the World Championships.

Kasie Enman the 2011 World Mountain running champion.