Eugene, OR: Thirty-two female student-athletes filed a detailed sex discrimination class action over 100 pages long against the University of Oregon today for depriving women of equal treatment and benefits, equal athletic aid, and equal opportunities to participate in varsity intercollegiate athletics in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The case, filed by twenty-six women’s varsity beach volleyball team members and six women’s club rowing team members in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, seeks “to hold Oregon accountable for discriminating against all of its female student-athletes and potential student-athletes, make Oregon pay damages to the women it has deprived and is depriving of equal treatment and equal athletic financial aid, and stop Oregon from violating Title IX in the future.”
Title IX, a federal civil rights law, prohibits sex discrimination by the University of Oregon and all educational institutions that receive federal funds. The women’s beach volleyball team members “aim to hold Oregon accountable for depriving them and all varsity female student-athletes of equal treatment and equal athletic financial aid in violation of Title IX.” The women’s club rowing team members “seek to hold Oregon accountable for depriving them and all present and future female students at Oregon of equal opportunities to participate in varsity athletics.”
“Title IX has been the law for more than fifty years. Oregon needs to comply with it, now,” said BG partner Arthur H. Bryant, lead counsel for the women. “Three months ago, The Oregonian exposed the school’s blatant sex discrimination in a front-page investigative report: “Oregon Ducks beach volleyball players detail disparate treatment that experts say could violate Title IX.” But the school refuses to change its ways or even admit there is a problem. It has taught its women athletes what the history of Title IX has shown: If women want equality, they need to fight for it. So that’s what the women at Oregon are doing.”
“We are proud to represent these courageous women who have decided to stand up and fight for the equality Title IX requires and against the sex discrimination that Title IX prohibits,” said BG lead co-counsel Lori Bullock in Des Moines, Iowa. “These young women did not go to school imagining they would sue their university, but they are committed to fighting for what is right.”
Other members of the BG team on this case are partners Joshua Hammack and Cary Joshi, and associates Laura Babiak and Savanna Jones.