Female athletes at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, filed a sex discrimination class action Tuesday claiming the school discriminated against its female student-athletes and potential student-athletes by eliminating three women's sports teams.
According to a release from Arthur Bryant Law, the California-based firm representing the athletes, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It charges SFA with violating Title IX by depriving women of equal opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics.
Female athletes at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, filed a sex discrimination class action Tuesday claiming the school discriminated against its female student-athletes and potential student-athletes by eliminating three women's sports teams.
According to a release from Arthur Bryant Law, the California-based firm representing the athletes, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It charges SFA with violating Title IX by depriving women of equal opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics.
The school announced May 22 that it was eliminating the women’s beach volleyball, bowling and golf teams, along with the men’s golf team, at the end of the academic year, when "it is already providing women with hundreds of fewer opportunities than the law requires," according to the release.
According to Arthur Bryant Law, the three eliminated women’s teams include 40 women (while the men’s golf team includes 11 men). As a result, the school’s athletic participation numbers will drop to approximately 172 women and 231 men, or 42.6% women — creating a 20.7% gap. SFA would need to add approximately 218 opportunities for women to reach gender equity under Title IX. "This is, of course, far more opportunities to participate in varsity athletics than the women’s beach volleyball, bowling and golf teams provide," the release states.
“It is truly sad and disappointing that we have to sue SFA to make it comply with Title IX, provide women with equal opportunities, and preserve our teams,” said Sophia Myers, a senior on the women’s beach volleyball team, according to the Arthur Bryant Law release. “But we have to stand up for our rights and fight what is right, including the gender equity Title IX requires.”
Myers is joined by fellow plaintiffs Kara Kay, Ryann Allison, Elaina Amador, Berklee Andrews and Meagan Ledbetter.
“SFA’s elimination of the women’s beach volleyball, bowling, and golf teams is a blatant violation of Title IX,” said lead counsel Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law P.C. in Oakland. “We reviewed the facts and the law with the school, asked it to reinstate the teams and agree to comply with Title IX, and it refused. So, our clients are doing what SFA is requiring them to do—hold the school accountable in court.”
John Clune and Ashlyn Hare of Hutchinson Black and Cook in Boulder, Colo., and James Sowder and Ellen Platt of Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons LLP in Dallas are co-counsel for the women athletes.
On June 5, 2025, Bryant emailed a letter to SFA president Neal Weaver, nothing that Title IX prohibits educational institutions receiving federal funds from eliminating women’s teams for which interest, ability, and competition are available unless “intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.”
SFA fails that test, Arthur Bryant Law contends, citing Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act data that SFA submitted and verified to the U.S. Department of Education as accurate. According to the data, SFA had a total undergraduate population of 7,832 in 2022-23, including 4,961 women and 2,871 men. So, undergraduate enrollment was 63.3% women. The school’s intercollegiate athletic teams had 212 women and 242 men, or 46.7% women—creating a gap of 16.6% between the women’s undergraduate enrollment rate and their intercollegiate athletic participation rate. SFA needed (and needs) to add women’s opportunities to comply with Title IX.
On June 27, the school refused to agree to reinstate the three women’s teams, Arthur Bryant Law reported.
Along with the class action, the women filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction seeking a court order preserving the three women’s teams while the case proceeds. A date for a hearing on the motion has not yet been set.
