Washington, DC, March 31, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mobile Billboards Protecting Women’s Sports
to Debut at NCAA Men’s & Women’s Basketball Championships
“NCAA: Stop Discriminating Against Female Athletes”
on LED Truck Display in Texas from March 31 to April 3
As basketball teams, coaches, and fans gather in Dallas and Houston for the upcoming National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Women’s and Men’s Final Four championships, the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) is sending a clear message on behalf of female athletes: Males cannot be allowed to compete in women’s sports in the interest of fairness and safety.
ICONS is a Las Vegas-based international non-profit network of eminent athletes, coaches, parents, and concerned citizens advocating for the preservation of women’s sports. ICONS will be sponsoring billboard trucks during the championships that drive around Dallas and Houston with LED messages stating, “NCAA: Stop Discriminating Against Female Athletes” and “Want to Help Sue? Donate!”
“We are urging the NCAA, and its new president Charlie Baker, to stand up and defend the rights of women and stop this injustice,” says Kim Jones, an All-American and co-founder of ICONS. “Under Title IX, women are promised equal opportunities to compete. Yet, as we’ve seen, when males are permitted to compete in women’s sports, female athletes are forced out of their own teams. This is unconscionable and inequitable.”
“The NCAA cannot pick and choose which laws to follow,” adds Marshi Smith, an NCAA Champion and co-founder of ICONS. “The NCAA must protect female athletes from discrimination on the basis of sex, or expect that we will be forced to take legal steps to compel them to do so.”
ICONS and other women’s organizations formally issued a Demand Letter to the NCAA on January 12 during the NCAA 2023 Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The letter, drawn up by women’s rights attorneys Lauren Bone and Candice Jackson, states in part: “In the world of college sports, it is impossible to provide equal opportunities for both sexes (as required by Title IX) without female-only teams.”
The demand letter advises the NCAA to take “direct and immediate action to establish rules to keep women’s collegiate sports female” and comply with US civil rights laws. Specifically, the letter says, the NCAA must act by “repealing all policies and rules that allow male athletes to take roster spots on women’s teams and/or compete in women’s events; establishing and enforcing rules to keep women’s sports female; and requiring colleges to provide single-sex locker rooms for female athletes.”
The demand letter is supported by organizations including Women’s Liberation Front, Independent Women’s Forum, Women’s Declaration International USA, Alliance Defending Freedom, Champion Women, Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, Concerned Women for America, and the International Consortium on Female Sport.
Additionally, ICONS leaders are supporting an amicus brief recently filed in the U.S. Supreme Court — West Virginia v. B.P.J. — which is signed by 67 female athletes, coaches, sports officials, and parents of female athletes. The brief, which supports a West Virginia law prohibiting biological males from competing in women’s sports, argues that men are so substantially different from women that they cannot fairly compete in physical sports. It further states that women suffer lasting tangible shame, loss, and harm when forced to compete against males in female sports.
Among the women who have signed the brief are renowned athletes such as: tennis star Martina Navratilova, 59x Grand Slam Champion; Jennifer Sees, former NCAA track and field athlete, high school track coach, and parent of a committed NCAA soccer player; swimmer Summer Sanders, Olympic Gold Medalist; Jill Sterkel, an Olympic swimmer, former world record holder, and former University of Texas head swim coach; swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Olympic Gold Medalist; Pam Etem, an Olympian in rowing; Madisan Debos, current NCAA track athlete; Laura Wilkinson, an Olympian and World Champion in diving, and parent to a daughter; swimmer Donna de Varona, an Olympic Gold Medalist and world record holder; Courtney DeSoto, mother of a high school female athlete; and cyclist Evie Edwards, the mother of an elementary-school-age female cyclist.
Inaugurated in June 2022, ICONS seeks to achieve a fair playing field across all women’s sports and defend the original intent of Title IX by expanding, empowering and protecting women’s sports and female athletes of the past, present, and future. ICONS is supported by world-class athletes, concerned parents, esteemed scientists, doctors, and health care experts, as well as prominent lawyers, advocacy groups, and women’s organizations. For questions or more information, please contact info@iconswomen.com.
You can donate to ICONS: https://donorbox.org/independent-council-on-women-s-sports
Support the NCAA Demand Letter: https://www.iconswomen.com/ncaa-demand-letter/
Sign the NCAA Petition (10,000+ signatures): https://www.iconswomen.com/ncaa-petition/
Follow us: @icons_women
