Women - Lawyers Threaten to Sue Over UConn Cutting Women's Rowing | The Boneyard

Women Lawyers Threaten to Sue Over UConn Cutting Women's Rowing

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LoyalFanCT

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Lawyers representing the UConn women’s rowing team sent a letter to UConn president Thomas Katsouleas on Monday stating that if the university did not reinstate the women’s rowing program, a class action lawsuit would be filed against the university and the lawyers would seek a preliminary injunction immediately to preserve the status of the team, which is set to be cut after this season. Title IX is the key to their lawsuit. I side with the lawyers and rowers!

www.courant.com

Title IX lawyers give UConn ultimatum: Reinstate the women’s rowing team or there will be a lawsuit

Lawyers representing the UConn women’s rowing team sent a letter to UConn president Thomas Katsouleas on Monday stating that if the university did not reinstate the women’s rowing progr…
www.courant.com www.courant.com
 
I would add one women's track scholarship and tell them to pound sand. Those who survive based solely on legal compliance technicalities shouldn't be making waves, no pun intended.

If they were smart, they'd have asked for a one time contribution to allow them to form a club team. This lawsuit is DOA.
 
Some people have no concept that funding a sport requires $$$$. If you don’t have the money you can’t fund the sport. This isn’t really that difficult a concept.
 
You would think Title IX considerations were taken into account before deciding which sports to cut.
60 on the team, 30 get some kind of AD financial support according to their coach.
 
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I'm sorry but I have a hard time supporting a sport that needs to hand out flyers to recruit current students the first few weeks of the semester to fill their roster each year. I remember seeing posters asking for girls to come out for the team with the promise of getting all the "athlete apparel" as an incentive.
 
Varsity rowing girls are only behind club rugby girls in terms of weirdness/corniness, sorry if this offends
 
Great job by the Courant to show the actual numbers. On the surface it seems the male teams were impacted more than the female, but that's without knowing how the scholarship distribution is.
Regardless, I can't get behind a lawsuit against my school. They can pound sand!
 
Here is some relevant info: Jennifer Sanford is in her 24th season as the head coach of the University of Connecticut rowing program. In 2014, she led UConn to a third place finish at the American Athletic Conference Championships at Mercer County Park.

Prior to coming to UConn, Sanford was the novice women’s coach at the University of Pennsylvania, where she led the Quaker novice eight to the finals of the Eastern Sprints. In 1996 and 1997, she was the United States Junior National Development Team coach.

Sanford comes from a large coaching family. Her father, Bill Sanford, retired in 2002 after coaching the men’s crew at Syracuse University for 37 years. Her sister Kris was the head women’s rowing coach at Syracuse from 1996 to 2010. At Marist College, her cousin Tom Sanford is the Director of Rowing and Head Women’s Coach.
 
So just from the article, Title IX is extremely complicated and while the school clearly tried to make these cuts in compliance with Title IX, who knows whether or not there is some technical violation that makes the plaintiff's suit reasonable.

Having said that, however, being outraged when a school with budget problems within the Athletic Department tries to deal with this by cutting both men's and women's teams is dumb. This is not like the 70s. If there was a violation here it was purely technical, and comparing it to days where there was no gender equality in college sports in any semblance is, frankly asinine.

But hey, as long as the lawyers get paid ....
 
Why have separate sports for each sex, thought Brown vs. Board of Education showed that separate but equal can't both be true by the very nature of separate? Have tryouts, whoever makes a team is on it.
Get rid of Title IX.
 
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LoyalFanCT said:
Here is some relevant info: Jennifer Sanford is in her 24th season as the head coach of the University of Connecticut rowing program. In 2014, she led UConn to a third place finish at the American Athletic Conference Championships at Mercer County Park.

Prior to coming to UConn, Sanford was the novice women’s coach at the University of Pennsylvania, where she led the Quaker novice eight to the finals of the Eastern Sprints. In 1996 and 1997, she was the United States Junior National Development Team coach.

Sanford comes from a large coaching family. Her father, Bill Sanford, retired in 2002 after coaching the men’s crew at Syracuse University for 37 years. Her sister Kris was the head women’s rowing coach at Syracuse from 1996 to 2010. At Marist College, her cousin Tom Sanford is the Director of Rowing and Head Women’s Coach.
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The bio is hanging her hat on one third place conference finish in 24 years? The UConn website has results going back as far as 08 and that is their best finish.
 
huskymedic said:
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It may be a minority but any Boneyard members who support women's crew and have the time should show up to show support for our rowing team. I can't go but I support them all the way! Go Huskies Rowing! Keep it varsity level!!
 
UConn rowing had a strong showing on the Charles River Sunday afternoon, with the Varsity Eight and Second Varsity Eight boats posting a pair of second place finishes. The Huskies competed against Boston College and Holy Cross across three races.
 
UConn women rowers stage protest.

www.nbcconnecticut.com

UConn Women's Rowers Protest School's Decision to Cut Program

Members of the University of Connecticut women’s rowing team marched across campus on Monday to protest the school’s decision to cut the program. Current athletes marched in sports bras and spandex with “IX” written on their bodies in a nod to the Title IX complaint they’ve filed against the...
www.nbcconnecticut.com www.nbcconnecticut.com

www.courant.com

UConn women’s rowers protest school’s decision to cut their team

About two dozen members of the UConn women’s rowing team marched from Greer Field House to Storrs Center on Monday afternoon to protest the university’s decision to cut the team due to …
www.courant.com www.courant.com
 
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A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that will prevent UConn from immediately eliminating its women's rowing team as part of budget cuts in its athletic department. U.S. District Judge Stephen Underhill issued the order Wednesday, ruling that the rowers were likely to prevail in their lawsuit that alleges eliminating the team would violate Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal access to women in education, including athletics.
 
LoyalFanCT said:
A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that will prevent UConn from immediately eliminating its women's rowing team as part of budget cuts in its athletic department. U.S. District Judge Stephen Underhill issued the order Wednesday, ruling that the rowers were likely to prevail in their lawsuit that alleges eliminating the team would violate Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal access to women in education, including athletics.
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That's truly embarrassing -- working with YOUR lawyers to do something in a manner that will comply with Title IX, and then being told by a Judge in a preliminary hearing that you're likely to lose.

Don't know the case or the law, but my Yale Law classmate Stephen Underhill is a good judge.
 
So what other men's team needs to go to get rid of the women's rowing program? Track?
Field Hockey
Football
Men's and Womens basketball.
Men's baseball and Womens softball.
Men's and Womens soccer.
Men's and Womens hockey.
Women's lacrosse
Women's tennis?

what else is there?
 
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businesslawyer said:
That's truly embarrassing -- working with YOUR lawyers to do something in a manner that will comply with Title IX, and then being told by a Judge in a preliminary hearing that you're likely to lose.

Don't know the case or the law, but my Yale Law classmate Stephen Underhill is a good judge.
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Ladies and gentlemen, that is how you bumblebrag :)
 
LoyalFanCT said:
www.greenwichtime.com

Editorial: No excuses for UConn on women’s sports funding

It’s impossible to tell the story of women’s basketball’s rise to prominence in the...
www.greenwichtime.com www.greenwichtime.com
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That was a very poor attempt at an editorial by an editorial board who never paid any attention to women's rowing or Uconn's Title IX compliance prior to this lawsuit.
The editorial bases its opinion on the expert testimony of the plaintiff. I would hope the plaintiffs hired an expert that would support their case.

All I do know is UConn has full time staff and lawyers whose sole or primary purpose is Title IX compliance. To think UConn has been through multiple conferences and "applied" for others and no one noticed they have been out of compliance for over a decade? Color me a skeptic.
On the chance they are found to be out of compliance- most likely through creative number crunching or just being unable to articulate their numbers, all those in the compliance office should he fired for cause.
 
Chin Diesel said:
That was a very poor attempt at an editorial by an editorial board who never paid any attention to women's rowing or Uconn's Title IX compliance prior to this lawsuit.
The editorial bases its opinion on the expert testimony of the plaintiff. I would hope the plaintiffs hired an expert that would support their case.

All I do know is UConn has full time staff and lawyers whose sole or primary purpose is Title IX compliance. To think UConn has been through multiple conferences and "applied" for others and no one noticed they have been out of compliance for over a decade? Color me a skeptic.
On the chance they are found to be out of compliance- most likely through creative number crunching or just being unable to articulate their numbers, all those in the compliance office should he fired for cause.
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There was a book I read about big time college football that talked about the…creative accounting most big time football schools use to justify title ix and having that behemoths of men subsidizing the women’s sports
 
the Q said:
There was a book I read about big time college football that talked about the…creative accounting most big time football schools use to justify title ix and having that behemoths of men subsidizing the women’s sports
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UConn's case should be easy to make.

There's a bunch of ways to get to compliance with Title IX. UConn just has to show it is taking one of the paths to compliance or even that it changed course but still gets there.

Rowing team has to show there is no path without including the rowing team.

Is it somewhere between a shell game and an accounting magic? Sure. But every school does it and most do it differently. There are hundreds of schools out there "in compliance" of Title IX without a rowing team.
 
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