For the first ever cover story written by the Daily Emerald investigations team, writers Tristin Hoffman, Jonathon Media and Alicia Santiago looked into the lawsuit against UO regarding Title IX violations. The investigations team first became aware of this story through James Crepea’s article for the Oregonian.

“[Crepea] highlighted a lot of the alleged ways that UO might have been violating Title IX,” Santiago said. “But we’re the newspaper that covers UO, so we have the privilege of getting an inside scoop that the Oregonian can’t.”

While the Oregonian covered unequal treatment of the Oregon beach volleyball team, the Emerald investigations team noted that the women’s club rowing team played a key role in the case.

“They highlight a big part of the story, which is the gender parity,” Hoffman said. “In order for UO to comply with Title IX there needs to be 94 female varsity athletes added to the roster, and UO rowing plays a part in that.”

One complication that the investigations team ran into while writing this piece was being unable to speak with plaintiffs about their personal experiences with UO in relation to Title IX. However, the team did find a way to report on the player experience.

“Our sources are documents and data,” Hoffman said. “Those documents speak for the players.”

After breaking the initial story that Oregon beach volleyball and women’s club rowing were filing a lawsuit against the university, the investigations team is more energized than ever.

“This is the first of many stories on UO,” Santiago said. “This is barely scraping the surface of things we want to uncover.”

Hoffman has been the news editor for the Emerald since June 2023 and this is her fourth cover story. Media has been a news reporter for the Emerald since July 2023 and this is his first cover story. Santiago has been a news reporter for the Daily Emerald since summer of 2022 and this is her third cover story.