The complex ruling — which weighs the law, interscholastic collegiate athletic rules and Quinnipiac's athletic program – amounted to a victory for five female varsity volleyball players and their female coach who sued in March 2009 when the school dropped their sport............itsguycode.
Among the coach and players, the decision provoked tears of joy and, immediately afterward, a flurry of preparation. The volleyball team had remained in place under the terms of an interim order issued by Underhill in May 2009.
Upon learning of the ruling, coach Robin Sparks alerted players through text messages. She said she expects to have 12 or 13 players when practice begins and, acting on the assumption that the team would prevail in the suit, she previously arranged a schedule of games.
"I think the important lesson for any young woman in all of this is not to be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and we tried to do it the right way. I'm proud of these girls for the way they fought for this."
Team member and sophomore Taylor Payne was coaching volleyball players in her hometown of Warwick, N.Y., when she received a text message from her coach.
"I never realized how much volleyball meant to me until someone said, 'You can't play,'" Payne said. "At first, when I was a freshman, it didn't feel like my fight, it was the players who had come before me. But once I became a member of the team, it was all of us fighting together. The volleyball team is like a family at Quinnipiac. I'm getting emotional. I've been in tears with everyone I've called."
The Women sued after the school, facing budget pressure, cut three sports teams in March 2009: men's golf, men's outdoor track, and women's volleyball. The school said at the time that it would maintain opportunities for female athletes and keep the school compliant with Title IX by establishing competitive cheerleading as a new varsity sport.
Underhill said in his decision that, while competitive cheerleading may evolve as a sport, the Quinnipiac squad at present "does not qualify as a varsity sport for the purposes of Title IX and, therefore, its members may not be counted as athletic participants under the statute."
"Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX; today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students," Underhill wrote.
In addition, he held that the school calculated its team rosters in a way that tended to overstate athletic opportunities for female student athletes. In particular, he said the women's cross country and indoor and outdoor track teams were, for practical purposes, one team consisting of essentially the same athletes. Yet, he said, the athletes were counted three times as members of three separate teams.
"Quinnipiac's practice of requiring women cross-country runners to participate on the indoor and outdoor track teams, and its treatment of the indoor and outdoor track teams as, in essence, an adjunct of the cross-country team, are sufficient to show that some cross-country runners who participate on the indoor and outdoor track teams should not be counted under Title IX," Underhill said.
Since the suit was filed, Underhill said, Quinnipiac has corrected some of what he described as deficiencies in the way it calculated the size of men's and women's team rosters. But he said the school continues to "deflate the size of its men's rosters and inflate the size of its women's rosters."
"Although that roster management is insufficient to conclude that Quinnipiac violated Title IX as a matter of law, it supports the ultimate conclusion that the University is not offering equal participation opportunities for its female students," Underhill said.
Underhill ordered the school to continue the women's varsity volleyball program through the 2010-11, while developing a Title IX compliance plan within 60 days.
Quinnipiac reacted to the decision in a brief, written statement.
"The University naturally is disappointed that the court has disallowed competitive cheer as a varsity sport," said Lynn Bushnell, vice president for public affairs. "We will continue to press for competitive cheer to become an officially recognized varsity sport in the future. Consistent with our long-standing plans to expand opportunities in women's athletics, the University intends to add women's rugby as a varsity sport beginning in the 2011-2012 academic year."
The volleyball players were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, the law firm of Pullman & Comley, and Kristen Galles, a Washington lawyer and Title IX expert.
"This victory gives force to the law that has opened doors for women over the last 30 years." said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut. "Today's ruling requires QU to stop playing games with the important principle of equal opportunity for women."
Jonathan Orleans of Pullman and Comley said: "This is a victory not only for the student athletes and their coach, but for women's collegiate sports generally. We look forward to discussing with Quinnipiac its plan for compliance with the court's ruling."
Underhill ruled about a year ago that Quinnipiac managed its varsity athletic rosters in a way that discriminated against women and certified the suit as a class action, allowing current and future female Quinnipiac students to join.
The volleyball team sued on several grounds but agreed to let the case go to trial on a claim that Quinnipiac discriminates on the basis of Sex in its allocation of athletic participation opportunities. The case was tried before Underhill, without a jury, in June."
