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89 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 857 (2021)
Title IX, Esports, and #EToo

handle is hein.journals/gwlr89 and id is 913 raw text is: Title IX, Esports, and #EToo Jane K. Stoever* ABSTRACT As colleges and universities increasingly award video gaming scholar- ships, field competitive esports teams, construct esports arenas in the centers of campuses, and promote student interaction through gaming, schools should anticipate the sexual cyberviolence, harassment, and technology-enabled abuse that commonly occur through gaming. This Article is the first to examine Title IX and First Amendment implica- tions of schools promoting and sponsoring gaming. To date, the rare Title IX discussion concerning esports has focused on increasing female representation in this male-dominated realm. As campuses invest heavily in esports, they also should foresee that funding and promoting esports-without attending to gen- der-based harassment and sexual violence in games and gaming-could lead to concerns that college campuses and organizational climates signal tolerance of sexual harassment and create chilly climates conducive to underreporting and retaliation. Colleges instead could lead in creating safe and inclusive gam- ing experiences. Esports is one of the fastest growing competitive markets in the world, and the gaming industry is repeating past mistakes of professional sports leagues like the National Football League, as demonstrated through the sum- mer 2020 outpouring of allegations of gender-based harassment, discrimina- tion, and sexual assault from competitive gamers and streamers. Rather than waiting for a global #EToo movement to create demand for a comprehensive gender-based violence policy, colleges should affirmatively act to create re- sponsible gaming initiatives with goals of violence prevention, player protec- tion, and harm minimization. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................ 858 I. ESPORTS: THE FASTEST-GROWING COMPETITIVE MARKET IN THE WORLD ................................ 870 II. GAMING DYNAMICS..................................... 874 A. Gaming Impacts .................................... 874 B. Gender in Gaming .................................. 881 * Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Domestic Violence Clinic, University of Califor- nia, Irvine School of Law. L.L.M., Georgetown University Law Center; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A., University of Kansas. I am grateful to Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Andrew Budzinski, Dan Burk, Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Leigh Goodmark, Michele Goodwin, Laurie Kohn, Stephen Lee, and David Min for their valuable comments. I wish to thank Christa Millard, Erica Navarro, Emily Osgood, Kyungeun Park, and Catherine Rosoff for their invaluable research assistance. July 2021 Vol. 89 No. 4 857

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