University of Oregon Hit with Title IX Class Action Over Alleged Discrimination Against Female Student-Athletes

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Members of the University of Oregon women’s varsity beach volleyball and club rowing teams have filed a proposed class action in which they allege the school treats its male student-athletes “shockingly better” than its female student-athletes.

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The 115-page lawsuit accuses the University of Oregon of violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding. Specifically, the case claims that Oregon has illegally deprived its female student-athletes of equal treatment, athletic financial aid and opportunities to participate in varsity athletics.

The complaint alleges that Oregon provides “far superior” treatment and more resources to male student-athletes on men’s teams program-wide, outlining its differential treatment of the men’s football team and the women’s beach volleyball team as the most “egregious” example of ongoing sex discrimination present in the university’s varsity athletic program.

“Oregon gives more than a third of its male student-athletes—the men on its football team—unbelievably better treatment than it gives to any of its female student-athletes,” the complaint reads. “In contrast, to cite the counterexample, the female student-athletes on Oregon’s women’s beach volleyball team are treated far worse than any of its male student-athletes.”

For instance, the university’s football team has a six-floor main facility complete with an array of special amenities like an “expansive and luxurious” locker room, a private barber shop, a weight room, a 150-seat theater with seats upholstered in Ferrari leather, several practice fields and a player’s lounge equipped with big-screen televisions, video-game consoles, pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball tables and vending machines, the suit says.

“No female student-athletes are provided with locker rooms, practice, or competitive facilities that are remotely close in quality to those provided to the male student-athletes on the men’s football team,” the complaint says, noting that the women’s beach volleyball team does not have any of its own facilities. Instead, the team practices and competes at a public park over a 10-minute drive from campus with “grossly” inadequate facilities, the case contends.

“For example, the public park lacks any stands for spectators, has bathrooms with no doors on the stalls, and is frequently littered with feces, drug paraphernalia, and other discarded items,” the filing shares. “No men’s team faces anything remotely similar.”

Although the Oregon football team receives “state-of-the-art, personalized gear and equipment in seemingly endless quantities,” the women’s beach volleyball team is given low-quality gear that often does not fit and is not personalized, and must re-use equipment for years, the case says.

Beyond facilities and supplies, Oregon gives its male student-athletes preferential scheduling for training, practices and games, better travel benefits, such as chartered flights for football away games, priority access to academic tutoring and mental health counseling, and superior medical and training services, among other perks, the suit alleges.

“When it comes to Oregon’s allocation of treatment and benefits, each beach volleyball Plaintiff was treated like a second-class citizen at Oregon because of her sex, which is inherently degrading, stigmatizing, and affected each of the Plaintiff’s experiences,” the complaint reads.

Per the suit, a look at publicly available data Oregon submitted to the federal government under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) continues to paint a clear picture of the university’s discriminatory treatment of female student-athletes.

Although women made up about 49 percent of Oregon’s varsity athletes during the 2021-2022 academic year, the numbers show that the university spent only 25 percent of its total athletic expenditures and 15 percent of its recruiting funds on female athletes, the filing relays. Moreover, EADA data reveals that for the past two decades, Oregon has paid its men’s teams’ head coaches more than six times what it pays its women’s teams’ head coaches, the complaint says.

The case also points out that Oregon has failed to pay its female student-athletes equal financial aid for over a decade. Oregon’s annual EADA report shows that in the 2021-2022 academic year, the university granted its 249 female student-athletes $832,470 less in athletic financial aid than they would have received had it complied with Title IX, which states that scholarship money be awarded to female varsity student-athletes in proportion to their athletic participation rates, the lawsuit claims.

According to the case, Oregon awarded no athletic financial aid to members of the women’s beach volleyball team in the 2021-2022 academic year, forcing several plaintiffs to take on large amounts of student debt or transfer to cheaper schools. One of the 26 beach volleyball plaintiffs says her athletic ambitions were made impossible without financial aid, as she was forced to quit the team her senior year in order to work to afford to live and attend classes.

“If Oregon had complied with Title IX, these female student-athletes would have received financial aid,” the suit says. “Likewise, if Oregon had complied with Title IX’s requirements when disbursing financial aid to student-athletes, the average aid to male and female participants would have been approximately equivalent, rather than skewed sharply in favor of males.”

The six club rowing plaintiffs allege that, in further violation of Title IX, Oregon has deprived them of equal opportunities to participate in Division 1 varsity athletics. According to the most recent data, Oregon would need to add at least 94 female student-athletes to its varsity athletic program to comply with Title IX’s requirement that intercollegiate level participation rates for female students be substantially proportional to their respective undergraduate enrollments, the complaint claims.

“Yet, despite the enormous success of its women’s club rowing team, Oregon has refused to sponsor a women’s varsity rowing team, for which interest, ability, and competition are plainly available,” the case says.

The lawsuit looks to represent any current or future female students who participate or will participate in intercollegiate varsity athletics at Oregon.

The suit also seeks to cover any current or future female students at Oregon who are deprived of the opportunity to participate in women’s varsity intercollegiate athletic teams that Oregon does not currently offer.

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