The parties in the gender equity lawsuit against Delaware State University have agreed to a settlement. This case was scheduled to go to trial this week, but the comprehensive settlement has made court appearances unnecessary (besides a yet-to-be-scheduled fairness hearing).

A quick look back:
This case began when DSU announced cuts to its intercollegiate sport offerings. Women's equestrian was included in the cuts (along with men's tennis; men's wrestling had been cut the previous year). This move, at an institution which does not provide proportional opportunities (the only prong of compliance available when a school opts to cut teams) engendered two lawsuits. The first was from a recruit. That case settled. The second was by members of the equestrian team and became a class-action lawsuit.

The latter has resulted in DSU agreeing to the following terms:

• Maintain the equestrian team as varsity sport (DSU opted to keep the team through the 2010-11 season after an injunction was filed to prevent the cut)
• Achieve substantial proportionality by the end of 2013 fiscal year
• Increase the funding for recruitment of female athletes over the next five years

As we predicted, this case ended relatively quickly and without too much protestation from DSU administrators. They did initially claim that they were in compliance with prong two. But someone must have informed them that cutting a viable women's team does not constitute a history of expanding opportunities.

DSU changing its stance became a kind of pattern. It seems, from an outsider's view, that DSU just did not know either/both the rules and the history. And when they did learn something, they took a different course. This resulted in, again, what seems like a fairly uncontentious settlement. (We have not spoken to any of the parties in this case, so we don't really know how the settlement process went. One could take a cynical perspective and choose to see DSU changing its tune when threatened with legal action. Also a legitimate and not unprecedented possibility.) But if we choose the former perspective then this aspect of the story is heartening. We see a school willing to work with experts about what is fair and equitable. It remains somewhat unfortunate that lawsuits have to filed and that DSU did not know the rules. But we hope that cases like these will have a didactic effect.

View Original Post at title-ix.blogspot.com

• Filed Under:  
• SportsPLUS, College, Discrimination/Title IX, Student-Athlete