Carly Wallace (8) hits the ball over the net. Oregon Ducks beach volleyball takes on the Portland Pilots at Amazon Park in Eugene, Ore. on April 6, 2019. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)
The University of Oregon women’s beach volleyball and women’s club rowing teams will be suing UO for Title IX violations, through Bailey & Glasser, a national law firm.
“Our discussions with the university’s lawyers were very surprising and disappointing. The University of Oregon’s athletic program could and should be a national model for gender equity and Title IX. Unfortunately, the school is choosing to make it a poster child for sex discrimination [in sports],” said Arthur Bryant, a lawyer for Bailey & Glasser with years of experience fighting Title IX cases.
Bryant said that the discussions between his firm and UO’s lawyers made clear that UO would rather be sued for Title IX than agree to comply with it.
“The women will have to sue.”
Bryant said the suit will be a sex discrimination class action against UO for “depriving its female student-athletes and potential student-athletes of equal treatment, athletic financial aid, and opportunities to participate in varsity intercollegiate athletics in violation of Title IX.”
Title IX prohibits sex discrimination against all academic institutions receiving funding through federal funds and requires them, including UO, to provide equal treatment to both female and male student-athletes. It also requires those institutions to provide equal opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics, which Bryant said UO has failed to do.
According to Bryant, the basis of the women athletes’ claims are:
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A lack of equitable financial aid. The Oregonian recently published an investigative report which outlined the fact that women’s beach volleyball members have not received athletic scholarships in its 10-year existence. Women in UO’s athletics are being deprived of over $800,000 a year in equal athletic financial aid, according to Equity in Athletics Data Analysis.
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Poorer facilities compared to men’s sports. For instance, while the beach volleyball team practices at Amazon Park, a public park in Eugene, men’s varsity tennis – the next-lowest-funded varsity sport – practices at the Student Tennis Center, a $2.1 million facility.
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Disproportionate numbers of male varsity athletes. Bryant said that, to reach gender parity, UO would need to add 94 female varsity athletes. Making women’s club rowing a varsity sport would help fill that gap, but the university has not considered doing so.
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UO is missing gender equity plans on this issue. According to Bryant, the UO lawyers believed there was “no need” to complete a gender equity plan, because they believed UO Athletics were already complying with Title IX.
Following the Oregonian’s investigative story, several athletes have reached out to Bailey & Glasser for legal representation.
In an Aug. 29 letter sent by Bailey & Glasser to UO, Bryant provided records obtained via the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. While 49 percent of UO’s varsity sports athletes in 2021-22 were women, the university spent over $60 million on its male athletes and only $20.4 million on its female athletes.
The same record also indicates that the UO spent $2.1 million on recruiting male student-athletes and only $389,324 on recruiting female student-athletes. This means that 15% of UO’s recruiting dollars were spent on the 49% of female student-athletes.
The women’s beach volleyball team is the only team that receives no scholarship funding, according to the Oregonian’s report. Publicly available documents on the GoDucks financial information website appear to conceal these numbers by listing women’s beach volleyball under “Other Sports”, and on other documents, listing women’s beach volleyball together with women’s volleyball as a single item despite being different sports.
The Aug. 29 letter, addressed to UO President John Karl Scholz, asked the university to respond no later than September 6. The UO did not make the September 6 meeting following the letter. Instead, UO and the firm met Sept. 20 and 22, according to Bryant.
The university addressed several of Bryant’s claims in a written statement to the Emerald sent by Angela Seydel, UO director of issues management.
“We place a high priority on our women’s athletics programs at the University of Oregon, and we are proud of so many incredible and unique success stories and accomplishments in recent years by our female student-athletes,” a portion of the statement read. “We strive to comply with all prongs of the three-part test, and as with many universities, relies most heavily on prong three, that the institution is fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.”
The statement also indicated that UO’s Office of the General Counsel was “unaware of any lawsuit being filed.” The university’s full statement can be found here.
The lawsuit will be filed in federal court in Oregon.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Title IX does not require universities to provide equal funding to both male and female student athletes; instead, it requires them to provide equal treatment.
*This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.
