The District Court that first told Quinnipiac University it violated Title IX when it dropped the women’s volleyball team and claimed its cheer squad counted as a sport has once again told the university that it is not in compliance with the law. In an almost 100-page opinion issued yesterday, the Court instructed QU to continue to sponsor volleyball and said that QU needs to make more progress before the Court will let it out from under its watch. Maybe this time the University will finally get the message.
The District Court that first told Quinnipiac University it violated Title IX when it dropped the women’s volleyball team and claimed its cheer squad counted as a sport has once again told the university that it is not in compliance with the law. In an almost 100-page opinion issued yesterday, the Court instructed QU to continue to sponsor volleyball and said that QU needs to make more progress before the Court will let it out from under its watch. Maybe this time the University will finally get the message.
The latest decision comes after QU asked the court to lift the order instructing it to keep volleyball and devise a plan to provide equal opportunities for female students. QU claims that it has added golf and rugby for women and made changes to cheer that should make it count under Title IX; so they once again want to drop the volleyball team (they seem to have a volleyball vendetta). The short version of what the court said is: (1) golf counts but the addition of the 11 golf athletes doesn’t bring QU into compliance; (2) rugby is still an emerging sport that does not provide female athletes with opportunities at the same Division I level as all the men’s teams and therefore doesn’t bring QU into compliance; and (3) cheer still suffers from many of the same problems that the court identified before, such as the lack of NCAA recognition, a progressive championship structure, and recruiting difficulties.
As the court said, “achieving Title IX compliance will require additional progress over a period of years.” So the ball is back in QU’s court.