Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case
March 26, 2009 • By Erik Landers, The Breeze
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for injunction Monday by former JMU student athletes whose sports were cut from the athletic program in 2007.
In 2006, JMU’s Board of Visitors voted to cut 10 sports in order to comply with Title IX and have the ratio of male-to-female athletes reflect the ratio of the student body.
Title IX has three levels of compliance, of which a school has to comply with only one level. The first level is compliance with the school’s male-to-female ratio. The second tier is continued advancement for women in sports, which includes adding more women’s teams, hiring female coaches and renovating women’s athletic facilities. The third is students’ needs, meaning full and effective accommodation of the interest and ability of both genders. JMU complies with tier one.
The teams that were cut include men’s archery, cross country, gymnastics, indoor track, outdoor track, swimming and wrestling as well as women’s archery, fencing and gymnastics. In all, 144 student athletes were affected by the cuts.
Two years ago, track and cross country runner Reed Ulrich was on a bus after a track meet with his teammates when the team received the unexpected news from assistant athletic director Kevin White that their team and several others were being cut by the board. Neither the team nor the coaches knew any cuts were being considered, according to Ulrich.
Ulrich, now a senior, feels that Title IX is an outdated law with no place in today’s society.
“Today more women are going to college than men, statistically speaking, and when you have a situation like James Madison where the student body population is over 60 percent women, how can you possibly match that out of a school of 17,000 with your athletics?”
Ulrich asked. “How can you have 17,000 students and only six men’s teams? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Equality in Athletics Inc. filed a lawsuit on behalf of the teams affected by the board’s decision, but thus far courts have upheld the original decision. EIA filed the petition with the Supreme Court on Nov. 18 for an injunction. An injunction is when a court orders a party to continue or refrain from doing a certain act.
Lawyers for EIA were hoping for a Grant Vacate and Remand (GVR) ruling in which the Supreme Court would grant their petition, vacating all previous rulings by lower courts, sending the case back to lower courts to take into account recent Supreme Court case rulings.
“It’s certainly not surprising,” EIA lawyer Larry Joseph said.
Joseph was hoping to be returned to district court with the backing of the Supreme Court, but instead EIA will appear in district court to plead its case once more. According to Joseph, no actual trial have been held and all rulings have come from hearings.
JMU President Linwood Rose expected the Supreme Court to reject EIA’s petition for an injunction, as well.
“My feeling is that there wasn’t much of a case for providing injunctive relief, so there were no surprises,” Rose said before addressing SGA on Tuesday.
No date for the case to reappear in district court has been set yet. According to Rose, JMU will file for dismissal of the case.
Athletes’ Views on Title IX
Ulrich and senior Ryon Williams, a former swimmer, feel Title IX was merely a scapegoat for the administration to cut sports programs, both calling it a “business decision.”
“JMU immediately decided to go for proportionality instead of complying with Title IX in one of the other two ways, which made Title IX a scapegoat,” Williams said.
Ulrich pointed to the cutting of three women’s teams as a sign that Title IX was not the real reason for the cuts.
“You can’t say [the cuts were] because of Title IX because they cut three women’s teams,” Ulrich said. “How can you claim Title IX when you are cutting women’s teams and you are doing it for the women? Where is the logic in that?”
Rose maintains the decision was the only viable option for the university to comply with Title IX.
“I still feel the same way I did before when I said that it was not a decision I enjoyed making, but I think legally the institution was in a position to make no decision but that,” Rose said.
Rose noted that as time has worn on, the clamor surrounding the Title IX cuts has died down.
“Obviously for a year or two after the decision was made there was some opposition that occurred,” Rose said. “In some cases we have made the successful transition to club sports and in other cases a few students transferred and others have just dropped their sport. I think the student athletes have pretty much accepted the decision at this point.”
Ulrich remains bitter toward Rose, the Board of Visitors and Athletic Director Jeff Bourne for their handling of the situation.
“When I say I don’t like JMU, I strictly mean the administration,” Ulrich said. “I hate the administration, but I love the people here.”
JMU was able to reallocate $548,923 from the cut sports programs to other sports in 2008, according to a 2007 Daily News-Record article.
Future of the Cut Sports
Joseph fired back at critics of EIA’s lawsuit who think that the cuts should be accepted, particularly as the majority of the athletes will have graduated before any change could take place.
At “JMU there is still a slimming track and cross country team that we think would benefit from having their male counterparts reinstated,” Joseph said. Joseph feels the teams deserve to regain varsity status, even if it is after all the team members have graduated.
Ulrich hopes that one day the administration will reinstate the cut teams, even if it happens well after he graduates in May.
“I’d be ecstatic if teams are brought back,” Ulrich said. “It will raise the institution’s standing. They talk about wanting to bring more students to this school and a more diverse population, when you cut a lot of the sports teams you aren’t going to do that.”
Contact Erik Landers at breezenews@gmail.com
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Title IX may not be the reason,but it allowed it.
The men’s sports were cut disproportionately based on Title IX guidelines. If the Title IX criteria was truly based on a desire for equality, then it would be applied to general education also. It’s not - it’s only applied in such a fashion when it hurts the boys.