UC Davis announces cuts

As expected, UC Davis will be cutting four sports due to the extreme budget shortfalls being experienced by California schools. Women's rowing, men's wrestling, men's track and field, and men's swimming and diving will not be on the slate of varsity sports next year. As we mentioned previously, Davis fields a much higher than average number of sports than its Big West Conference peers making it a difficult financial juggling act even in good economic times.
The expected savings is $5 million over five years. But the fiscal restructuring plan in the athletic department will eliminate its $1 million+ deficit and make it fiscally solvent in 3-5 years.
Of course Title IX was one factor in deciding which teams to cut. If you read the news that came directly from Davis you will see that the cuts affect 73 female student-athletes and 80 male student-athletes. If you read the news that came from the AP and was re-posted on ESPN, you will read that three men's sports got cut and one women's sport was cut. In other words, it looks like men are bearing the overwhelming brunt of the cuts, which is not the case.
Davis is required, as are all University of California system schools because of a previous Title IX settlement, to maintain proportional opportunities within 5 percentage points. It currently does so and thus cuts would not--and did not as we see--disproportionately one gender.

Diving coach lawsuit moves to federal court

We blogged about the lawsuit filed by former Texas A&M diving coach Kevin Wright when he filed for wrongful termination in state court under a whistleblower protection statute in Texas. At that time we wondered whether there would also be a Title IX retaliation claim.
There is now--because Wright has moved his case to federal court. As a brief reminder, Wright, who had served 17 seasons as the diving coach, was terminated last September. He alleges that it was because he complained about Title IX violations.
Wright said that a diver was asked to lie about travel accommodations to an investigator examining gender equity within the department. Said diver heard a female swimmer actually lie in the interview. Wright complained about the inequitable travel arrangements. He also expressed concerns over potential recruiting violations.
The university, should this go to court, is likely to accuse Wright of anger management issues and potential sexual harassment of a fellow coach. The validity of these counter accusations is, of course, unknown.
No word on trial dates or negotiations.

Former Texas A&M Diving Coach Files Retaliation Case

Kevin Wright, who was fired in September from his position as head coach of Texas A&M's diving team, has sued the university in state court, alleging he was terminated in retaliation for reporting concerns about gender discrimination in athletics. According to this article, which discusses the complaint, the precipitating incident occurred in the context of a 2008 investigation of the athletic department by the Office of Civil Rights. Wright had heard from one of his divers that the swim team coach, Steven Bultman, had asked a swimmer to lie to investigators in order to conceal the swim team's practice of assigning more female athletes to hotel rooms (4) than male athletes (2). Wright alleges that his email raising this to the attention of the athletic department -- along with subsequent emails addressing other gender equity concerns -- was met with "immediate hostility" which ultimately led to his termination the several months later.

Wright has filed suit under a Texas whistleblower protection statute that protects state employees. The article does not say whether the case includes a federal, Title IX retaliation claim as well, but on these facts it certainly could have. In the last few years, a number of coaches have won damage awards and settlements in similar retaliation cases.

Arizona State budget issues lead to cuts

In an effort to fully fund and support its student-athletes and sports teams, ASU has decided to cut three sports: men's tennis, wrestling, and swimming. ASU had been carrying 22 sports--quite a few for a big-time DI program. Now they are down to 20 (they are keeping men's diving which had been combined with the swim team). The decision seemed swift and firm--probably a good thing in stemming backlash--though signs indicate that an uproar is inevitable. The VP of Athletics decided that cutting teams was preferable to taking away bits and pieces from all teams. No one has ruled out the possibility of the cut teams raising enough money for endowments but in an effort to be fair to student-athletes and give them an opportunity to transfer, the department opted to announce the cuts before fundraising began.
No one at ASU has mentioned Title IX. And rightly so. But members of the local wrestling community have already spoken out and blamed Title IX.
Said one wrestling booster who was particularly irate because he had hoped that ASU would never use Title IX as an excuse to cut wrestling (they haven't, by the way), "all these schools have a book on how to drop sports."
I wonder if that book includes instructions on how to deal with all the anti-Title IX backlash.