A federal judge in Connecticut is being asked to decide whether cheerleading should be counted as a sport by schools to satisfy Title IX requirements. The trial stems from a lawsuit filed last year by five members of the volleyball team at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University and coach Robin Sparks after the school decided in a budgetary move to eliminate women's volleyball in favor of a competitive cheer squad.
Judge Stefan Underhill also will be asked to decide whether Quinnipiac improperly manipulates the size of the rosters of its other teams to get around complying with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics, according to a report in the Associated Press.
Underhill recently agreed to make the lawsuit a class action for all current and future female athletes at Quinnipiac. The case goes to trial in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, beginning Monday.
Underhill issued a temporary injunction last year that prevented the school from disbanding the volleyball team after finding the school was over-reporting the participation opportunities for its female athletes and under-reporting the opportunities for men.
Evidence showed the men's baseball and lacrosse teams, for example, would drop players before reporting data to the Department of Education and reinstate them after the reports were submitted. Conversely, the women's softball team would add players before the reporting date, knowing the additional players would not be on the team in the spring.
Nonetheless, in issuing his injunction, Underhill said competitive cheer “although not presently an NCAA recognized sport or emerging sport, has all the necessary characteristics of a potentially valid competitive sport.”
Quinnipiac officials and their lawyers declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said in a short statement that the school “believes that it has complied with all aspects of Title IX legislation and will continue to do so.”
