{"id":500416,"date":"2022-03-19T17:54:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-20T00:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=500416"},"modified":"2022-03-19T19:29:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T02:29:45","slug":"lia-thomas-debate-through-inaction-ncaa-operated-a-circus-at-championship-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/lia-thomas-debate-through-inaction-ncaa-operated-a-circus-at-championship-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Lia Thomas Debate: Through Inaction, NCAA Operated a Circus at Championship Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Lia Thomas Debate: Through Inaction, NCAA Operated a Circus at Championship Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Virginia\u2019s dominance and repeat as champion.<\/p>\n<p>The individual excellence of Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh.<\/p>\n<p>Backstroke brilliance from Katharine Berkoff and Regan Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Several American-record performances.<\/p>\n<p>The aforementioned storylines were highlights of the NCAA Women\u2019s Championships, which wrapped up on Saturday night at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta. And over four days, these exploits received attention for their excellence \u2013 but not to the level that was due.<\/p>\n<p>No, this edition of the competition has been defined by controversy, specifically the inclusion of University of Pennsylvania transgender woman <strong>Lia Thomas<\/strong>. Over the past three days, Thomas captured a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-title-for-lia-thomas-is-joke-with-biological-women-as-punchline-hardly-a-laughing-matter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">title in the 500-yard freestyle<\/a>, placed fifth in the 200 freestyle and eighth in the 100 freestyle, that latest effort arriving on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who underwent male puberty before transitioning and moving from the men\u2019s team to women\u2019s squad at Penn, Thomas possessed major advantages over the biological women against whom she raced. She\u2019ll say the playing field is even. She\u2019s wrong. But Thomas competed within the rules established by the NCAA \u2013 and that is where the problem lies.<\/p>\n<p>Simply, the NCAA abandoned its women\u2019s athletes, and its four days of competition equated to a charade. With Thomas in three fields, there was illegitimate racing. Outside the competition venue, there were protestors. Inside the facility, there was tension. On social media, there was ample discussion, some civil and much not. Make no mistake: Attention at the 2022 NCAA Women\u2019s Champs was not solely where it belonged \u2013 on the athletes.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a shame.<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t have to be this way.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s the NCAA\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there will be assertions that the coverage \u2013 including here at <em>Swimming World<\/em> \u2013 played a role in the spotlight shifting to Thomas. And I\u2019m not going to shy away and dispute that this website and magazine have not focused heavily on the topic. We have. But we\u2019re a news organization and it is our role to not only report what is unfolding, but to take stances on certain issues. And, obviously, the position here is that women\u2019s rights and women\u2019s sports need to be protected \u2013 which they have not been. The NCAA had to be called out. It needed to be challenged for what transpired this season, and for the future.<\/p>\n<p>The Lia Thomas saga may have started a couple of years back, when Thomas opted to transition to a transgender woman. But the story truly began to impact this sport, and this particular NCAA season, when Thomas popped a pair of nation-leading times in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle at December\u2019s Zippy Invitational in Ohio. It became apparent then that Thomas would be a factor on the national scene, having vaulted from a middle-of-the-road male athlete to a top-ranked female.<\/p>\n<p>Immediately, questions were asked. How could an athlete surge from also-ran status to title contender, and that shift not be considered improper? How were Thomas\u2019 clear advantages from male puberty (height, strength, testosterone level, hand\/feet size, lung capacity) not triggering alarms with organizations such as the NCAA?<\/p>\n<p>The NCAA can never say it was ignorant to the subject. Because the issue was quickly raised here, by <a href=\"http:\/\/championwomen.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Champion Women<\/a>, by the Women\u2019s Sports Policy Working Group, by State of Swimming and by anonymous parents and athletes (more on that later), it was clear that the issue wasn\u2019t going to fade away and was a significant matter. Most recently, a group of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/texas-womens-alums-write-letter-on-lia-thomas-participation-in-ncaa-championships\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Texas alums<\/a> made their voices known.<\/p>\n<p>The NCAA had the opportunity to act during the winter, specifically when its Board of Governors discussed the issue of transgender participation at a meeting in Indianapolis. Rather than implement its own guidelines, the NCAA kicked the issue to various national-governing bodies, including USA Swimming, and indicated it would abide by the rules set forth by those institutions.<\/p>\n<p>When USA Swimming stepped forward and announced stringent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usaswimming.org\/news\/2022\/02\/01\/usa-swimming-releases-athlete-inclusion-competitive-equity-and-eligibility-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rules for transgender participation<\/a>, the NCAA balked. It didn\u2019t like what emerged from Colorado Springs and decided it would grandfather in new bylaws \u2013 notably easier to meet than those adopted by USA Swimming \u2013 and Thomas was eligible to race in Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>It was the latest in a long line of NCAA actions which reflect the organization\u2019s disinterest in, and ineptitude handling, women\u2019s rights, and equal opportunities for female athletes. Remember last year\u2019s bubble-environment for the NCAA\u2019s basketball tournaments. Before the organization was called out and fixed the situation, the women\u2019s training equipment was nothing more than a rack of barbells. Meanwhile, the men were provided with a state-of-the-art facility. More, men\u2019s and women\u2019s athletes have been treated differently in regard to which meals and gifts have been supplied during tournament competition.<\/p>\n<p>When Title IX was enacted nearly 50 years ago, it was intended to provide women with equal rights in educational and federally funded settings. Yet, there remains a chasm in treatment, and the Thomas situation has revealed as much.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the NCAA, clamps have been put on the athletes affected by Thomas\u2019 ability to compete in a women\u2019s sport. The Ivy League as a conference, and its eight schools individually, told its swimmers to shut up and accept the way things are. More, even if athletes wanted to speak out, they couldn\u2019t. The moment someone speaks out against the unfairness present in racing a transgender woman, they are labeled transphobic and bullied into a corner \u2013 with concerns arising as to how that perception may affect their future employment and personal lives.<\/p>\n<p>During the NCAA Championships, a group of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ivy-league-parents-write-new-letter-of-protest-to-ncaas-policy-on-transgender-athletes-treatment-of-women\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ivy League parents penned a letter<\/a> which addressed these concerns and the nature of a painful season. The truth is, the NCAA Championships merely signaled the end of the campaign. However, the entire winter season has been marred by the lack of support from the NCAA and the unfairness of Thomas in the water.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven as some people began to advocate on their behalf, the universities and the NCAA continued to ignore women,\u201d the Ivy League parents wrote. \u201cSeveral of us wished to remove our girls from the schools. We offered to pull them, bang on doors demanding fair treatment, any action they wanted to take. Already handling the emotional burden of knowing their perspectives were unwanted, their treatment not important, their lives a blur of studying and training, they could handle no more pressure to alienate what was left of their world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, congratulations to the NCAA. At this championship meet, it created an atmosphere that was a circus \u2013 just without the Big Top.<\/p>\n<p><em>All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lia Thomas Debate: Through Inaction, NCAA Operated a Circus at Championship Competition Virginia\u2019s dominance and repeat as champion. The individual excellence of Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh. Backstroke brilliance from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7533,"featured_media":500337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,122077,6],"tags":[130127,129951,251,51820],"class_list":["post-500416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-americas","category-college","tag-2022-ncaa-college-swimming-championships-women-di","tag-lia-thomas","tag-ncaa","tag-transgender"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - 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