Monday, March 23, 2009

Why No NCAA Women's Bracket, President Obama?

One of the first acts of President Obama's fledgling administration was to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Bill (H.R. 11) which cracked down on employers "discriminating" the wages or salaries that women received. In the President's official remarks, he stated the following:

And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us, because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.

Skip ahead a couple of months to when President Obama filled out his Mens' NCAA Brackets - highly publicized for ESPN. Where were the womens' brackets? It appears that those were nonexistent - I do believe that President Obama discriminated against the ladies who play extremely well at their sport. If President Obama had publicized the women's brackets to the same extent as the men's brackets, he would have lifted their fan participation to what would probably be the highest it has ever been. He would have given an additional piece of the nation an opportunity to value the womens' contributions to the game of basketball.

However, he didn't, and female college basketball players around the nation are still left dreaming about the opportunities that their mothers, grandmothers, and now themselves never could have imagined.

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