Mobile Billboards Protecting Women’s Sports to Debut at NCAA Men’s & Women’s Basketball Championships
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.”