Aztecs Will Meet CalNow Deadline

May 19, 1999

San Diego, CA -- San Diego State Director of Athletics Rick Bay today announced that the Aztec athletic program will be in compliance with the1998-99 fiscal year deadline for the Cal-NOW consent decree dealing with gender equity.

The decree was the result of a 1993 settlement of the gender equity lawsuit brought by the California National Organization of Women against the 20-school California State University system, of which SDSU is a part. The settlement mandated that CSU schools reach compliance levels in participation, grants-in-aid and expenditures in line with the male-female demographics of each university's individual campus by June 1, 1999. Schools agreed to be within five-percent of the campus population model in participation and grants-in-aid and within 10% in expenditures by that date relating to figures for the 1998-99 academic year.

"This has not been an easy process, especially for those of us that play Division I-A football. But we will have met the criteria set forth in this consent decree by the end of this fiscal year. Some of these standards are actually more stringent than those mandated by Title IX," said Bay. "This represents a tremendous commitment by the university at-large towards athletics. There aren't many universities that play major college football who are as compliant with the concept of gender equity as San Diego State."

The university gender breakdown of NCAA-eligible students on Montezuma Mesa against which the CalNow decree is measured is 55% women and 45% men. The 1998-99 budgetary breakdown in the three key areas of compliance with the Cal-NOW decree are as follows:

Number of participants -- Women 266 (53.5%), Men 231 (46.5%); Grant-in Aid -- Women $1,105,243 (51.9%), Men $1,022,488 (48.1%); Qualifying Expenditures -- Women $5,575,494 (45.5%), Men $6,668,609 (54.5%).