Four former members of the Quinnipiac University Lady Bobcats’ volleyball team filed a lawsuit against the college after the institution in Hamden, Connecticut announced it was dropping its women’s volleyball team for competitive cheerleading in a move to save money while still remaining in compliance with Title IX.
The lawsuit was picked up by two A.C.L.U lawyers and taken to court in June with claims that the elimination of the women’s volleyball program was violating Title IX. Quinnipiac, who doesn’t field a men’s volleyball team, also eliminated the men’s golf and outdoor track programs.
The law was passed by Congress in 1972 and has been amended several times, but it has changed the face in the ever-evolving world of college sports. For those not familiar with Title IX, in a nutshell — it requires any institution getting any government money to provide equal athletic opportunities for males and females.
The question surrounding the move to get rid of the women’s volleyball program comes from when Title IX was expanded in 1994 when universities were made to provide yearly reports to the Department of Education showing their sports rosters, recruiting budgets, and coaches’ salaries etc… to allow the Office of Civil Rights to monitor their compliance with the law.
If cheerleading is ruled a sport then Quinnipiac would be in compliance with Title IX, if not they would be in violation of the law as currently set by Title IX. There is a temporary injunction stopping Quinnipiac from getting rid of the women’s volleyball team until a ruling is made on the stature of competitive cheerleading.
As of today, competitive cheerleading is not an NCAA and Office of Civil Rights recognized sport, but many say it has the “necessary characteristics” to become a valid competitive sport.
The other side argument only sees cheerleading as a way to entertain fans at sporting events ignoring the preparation and athletic ability that goes into said form of entertainment.
College baseball is keeping an close eye on this court case after being one of the most hardest hit men’s major athletic programs across the country.
When the law was expanded there was an effort made to add an exception for sports that raised revenue for universities claiming while sports isn’t connected to learning, but it is connected to helping raise money to create more learning opportunities for their respective institutes.
The exemption idea fell on deaf ears and forced schools like the University of Colorado, Colorado State, and Denver to change their baseball programs to National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) teams to stay in compliance with Title IX.
There has been a tremendous amount of progress made in female athletics since the passing of the law by colleges getting sued for discrimination by groups like the ACLU that turn blind eyes to groups and programs that do not offer a fair shake for male students.
If the court rules that competitive cheerleading is a sport, it could open the door for the return of once proud programs in Colorado to take their baseball programs back to the Division-I level of competition.
