The level of equality between male and female athletes has always been an issue of discussion in some places. Fantasia Goodwin was justified to continue to compete in basketball while pregnant and to keep her pregnancy a secret because it’s her automatic right to do so, also to avoid the discrimination countless of pregnant female athletes have endured.
As a human being Fantasia Goodwin has the right to make her own decisions on what’s best for herself. As a Division 1 basketball athlete for Syracuse University, there was no doubt that Goodwin took good care of her body and stayed in shape to compete at the college level. Although, there is no specific reason to why Goodwin decided to continue to compete for most of the season while pregnant, …show more content…
Punishing female student athletes by taking away their scholarships because they become pregnant is a direct example of discrimination. According to, Deborah L Blake, “only a handful of educational institutions had written policies on pregnant athletes. Lacking policies that govern the treatment of pregnant athletes, many colleges and universities have responded with ad hoc, poorly conceived approaches that effectively punish athletes for becoming pregnant” (Blake). The inequality female collegiate athletes are unreal, instead of helping athletes who become pregnant unexpectedly, university sport programs rather punish them by taking away their athletic scholarship completely, running their opportunity to receive a higher education as well as to compete in college athletics, like in the case of Tara Brady, a Sacred Heart basketball star that lost everything due to her pregnancy in college. Tara brady filed a civil rights lawsuit against her Sacred Heart coach and the university for violating Title IX by “discriminating against her on the basis of sex” (Coffey, W). Long story short, Sacred Heart University turned their backs on Brady as she decided to complete her pregnancy and stated that, "It was very clear to me that if I had had an abortion I would still be on the team”(Coffey,W). Although her scholarship was reinstated, and could rejoin the team, her treatment from her coach was fouler than what anyone could imagined, she was shunned completely from all team activities, and seen as dead weight to the team. This connects back to my thesis by explaining just how Fantasia Goodwin could have experienced discrimination if she decided to make her pregnancy known, just as other colligate athletes have before her. As previously stated before, during the time of Goodwin’s pregnancy, Syracuse did not have a policy that
As a human being Fantasia Goodwin has the right to make her own decisions on what’s best for herself. As a Division 1 basketball athlete for Syracuse University, there was no doubt that Goodwin took good care of her body and stayed in shape to compete at the college level. Although, there is no specific reason to why Goodwin decided to continue to compete for most of the season while pregnant, …show more content…
Punishing female student athletes by taking away their scholarships because they become pregnant is a direct example of discrimination. According to, Deborah L Blake, “only a handful of educational institutions had written policies on pregnant athletes. Lacking policies that govern the treatment of pregnant athletes, many colleges and universities have responded with ad hoc, poorly conceived approaches that effectively punish athletes for becoming pregnant” (Blake). The inequality female collegiate athletes are unreal, instead of helping athletes who become pregnant unexpectedly, university sport programs rather punish them by taking away their athletic scholarship completely, running their opportunity to receive a higher education as well as to compete in college athletics, like in the case of Tara Brady, a Sacred Heart basketball star that lost everything due to her pregnancy in college. Tara brady filed a civil rights lawsuit against her Sacred Heart coach and the university for violating Title IX by “discriminating against her on the basis of sex” (Coffey, W). Long story short, Sacred Heart University turned their backs on Brady as she decided to complete her pregnancy and stated that, "It was very clear to me that if I had had an abortion I would still be on the team”(Coffey,W). Although her scholarship was reinstated, and could rejoin the team, her treatment from her coach was fouler than what anyone could imagined, she was shunned completely from all team activities, and seen as dead weight to the team. This connects back to my thesis by explaining just how Fantasia Goodwin could have experienced discrimination if she decided to make her pregnancy known, just as other colligate athletes have before her. As previously stated before, during the time of Goodwin’s pregnancy, Syracuse did not have a policy that