The University of Oregon women's beach volleyball and women's rowing teams have filed a class action Title IX complaint, alleging their programs have been neglected when compared to men's programs at the field.
According to Forbes, the Oregon beach volleyball team uses hand-me-down uniforms, practices and competes at a park with no stands for spectators, and has no dedicated medical personnel, inadequate travel accommodations and daily allowances, and no scholarships.
One of the complaint's lead plaintiffs, volleyball player Ashley Schroeder, told Forbes she was reluctant to file the complaint.
“I didn’t want to file a lawsuit against the school that I love, but, for them to allow it to go on for so long, it made me question, ‘why do they hate our team so much?’," Schroeder said. "It makes me feel not valued and not appreciated by the school at all. We had to do something about it.”
Title IX requires that participation spots in university sports be proportionate to the number of women and men enrolled in the school. The complaint alleges that Oregon would need to provide 94 additional spots for women under those rules.
Arthur H. Bryant, attorney for the plaintiffs, explained, “Women are 49 percent of the student-athletes, but the school spends only 25 percent of its athletics dollars and 15 percent of its recruiting dollars on them. It also deprives them of equal athletic financial aid. To make up for the unequal athletic aid it paid its male student-athletes from 2017-18 to 2021-22, the past five years for which data is publicly available, Oregon would have to pay over $4.5 million in damages to its female student-athletes. And the unequal expenditures are, of course, continuing.”
For beach volleyball and rowing that means athletes end up having to cover their own expenses for meals and accommodations while traveling. Schroeder said that the beach volleyball team often has to at friends' houses on air mattresses when they on the road.
Oregon's forthcoming move from the Pac 12 to the Big Ten will leave the future of beach volleyball at the school up in the air, as the Big Ten doesn't have beach volleyball. When Schroeder asked a compliance officer about this, she said the officer seemed surprised because they had not even thought about it.
Elise Haverland, the lead plaintiff for the rowers, told Forbes that she's just hoping for more equality in her school's athletics department.
“The main thing for me is that we are not looking for treatment that is better than anyone else," Haverland said. "We are not looking for opportunities that shouldn’t be awarded to us. We are looking for equal treatment. A level playing field. So, I would like to see the university just give us that opportunity, give us that equality, and I would like them to show us that we are valued on campus and at this school because we should be.”
