Instead of fulfilling its original promise to give women a seat at the table in athletics, the NCAA’s Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) designation might be stifling their careers, says Elizabeth Taylor.

Taylor and her colleagues uncovered the unintended consequences and mixed feelings that SWAs experience within their departments as a result of their designation. Participants reported frequent misunderstandings of their role, hindrances to their professional development and a lack of any meaningful additional power, leading several of them to call for the designation’s removal.