District Court Judge Stefan Underhill granted class action status to a Title IX suit brought by the Quinnipiac University women’s volleyball team yesterday. Quinnipiac University is in Hamden, Connecticut. Judge Underhill ruled that “all present, prospective and future female students at Quinnipiac University who have been harmed by and want to end” sex discrimination in athletics at the school can apply to join the class, reported the CT Post. The case will be tried without a jury in June. Quinnipiac University reinstated its women’s volleyball team in May 2009 as a result of an injunction in the lawsuit against the school. At the time of the reinstatement of the women’s volleyball program, the school announced the indoor men’s track program would be cut. The lawsuit alleges that Quinnipiac violates Title IX by failing to provide equal opportunity to women athletes to participate in varsity-level sports. Coach Robin Sparks testified that the school takes names of male student athletes off team rosters and then reinstitutes them in order to make the school’s Title IX reports appear to be in compliance with the law. The lawsuit was filed in response to a March 2009 announcement by Quinnipiac that the school was cutting women’s volleyball, men’s golf, and men’s outdoor track and changing competitive cheerleading to a varsity sport.
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