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A federal appeals court panel upheld an amended settlement reached last year between Brown University and female former athletes who sued back in the 1990s when the university cut several sports teams, including women’s gymnastics and volleyball, The Providence Journal reported.
The ruling put an end to a two-decade dispute that became a landmark case for ensuring gender equity in college sports under Title IX.
The original settlement, reached in 1998, required Brown to comply with Title IX legislation in maintaining equivalent varsity sports programs for women. Last year, when Brown moved to cut more teams, the ACLU and the legal advocacy group Public Justice asked the federal court to leverage the 1998 agreement to force the university to preserve the women’s sports programs. Through mediation, the parties reached a settlement in which Brown agreed to reinstate two women’s teams -- equestrian and fencing -- in exchange for ending the 1998 agreement.
Last month, 12 female athletes currently on the women’s gymnastics and ice hockey teams urged the court to reject the amended settlement in the interests of current and future female athletes at the Ivy League school.
The three-judge panel sided with the university and the former athletes in upholding the settlement, while still acknowledging its limitations.
“Although we uphold the district court's determination that the amended Settlement Agreement is fair, reasonable, and adequate, we do not pretend that it is perfect,” Judge Bruce M. Selya wrote. “But ‘there are unlikely to be ideal solutions to all the vexing problems that might potentially arise’ in Title IX class-action litigation involving collegiate programs. The settlement reached here, though not perfect, marks a fitting conclusion to decades of judicial intrusion upon Brown’s home field.”
