Five Fresno State lacrosse players file sex discrimination lawsuit. They want team back
Five members of the women’s lacrosse program at Fresno State filed a sex discrimination class action lawsuit against the university on Friday alleging Title IX violations.
The athletes contend that Fresno State’s move to eliminate the sport infringes on their rights.
“We filed our complaint alleging the school is discriminating against women athletes and potential athletes in every aspect of its intercollegiate athletics program,” said attorney Arthur H. Bryant of the firm Bailey Glasser, LLP in Oakland.
“It’s depriving them of equal opportunities to participate, equal athletics financial aid and equal treatment and so we filed the class action. Our primary goals are that we want the school to reinstate the women’s lacrosse team, to start treating it like a varsity team, which it stopped doing, and to get in compliance with Title IX.”
The suit was filed in Fresno federal court. The players are asking for a court order preserving the women’s lacrosse team and requiring it to be treated equally with other varsity teams while the case proceeds.
The university released a statement on the lawsuit Friday afternoon: “The University stands behind its position that, as a result of state budget reductions and significant revenue losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the university had to make the difficult decision to eliminate three sports teams: men’s tennis, men’s wrestling and women’s lacrosse after this academic year.
“The Department of Athletics will ensure continued efforts toward Title IX compliance as a result of these reductions. The University is unable to comment any further in regard to matters involving pending litigation.”
The lacrosse team is scheduled to start its last season on Sunday at UC Davis. Fresno State announced in October that it was eliminating lacrosse, wrestling and men’s tennis, part of a cost-saving measure with athletics revenues in a sharp decline during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is truly sad and disappointing that we have to sue Fresno State to make it comply with Title IX, treat women equally, and preserve our team” Megan Walaitis, a senior on the lacrosse team, said in a statement through Bailey Glasser. “But we have to stand up for our rights and fight. Fresno State actively recruited us. We love being here and playing. But it’s trying to eliminate our team, already treating us like we’re not a varsity team, and discriminating against women throughout its intercollegiate athletic program.”
In addition to Walaitis, the lawsuit was filed by team members Taylor Anders, Hennessey Evans, Abbigayle Roberts and Tara Weir.
The defendants in the suit are Fresno State, athletics director Terrence Tumey, former university President Joseph I. Castro, and interim President Saul Jimenez-Sandoval.
Bryant, the attorney representing the players, was the lead trial counsel in the first Title IX case tried against a university for discriminating against its women athletes when with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Washington, D.C., representing plaintiffs in the precedent-setting Haffer vs. Temple University in 1982.
He also represented plaintiffs in Cohen vs. Brown University in 1998, and in September, more than 20 years after a consent agreement, a second settlement was reached after the university announced it was eliminating 11 sports programs including five for women.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 3:33 PM.