Quinnipiac University is reinstating the women's volleyball program after a hearing on allegations the volleyball team made about roster manipulation. Instead, the school is getting rid of men's indoor track, men's golf and men's outdoor track.
On Friday, a federal judge granted an injunction that keeps the team intact until a gender equity lawsuit against the school can be heard. The school issued a news release Tuesday about its plans.
Mark Thompson, the university's senior vice president for academic and student affairs, is going to do a full review of its teams to ensure the university is in compliance with regulations.
It looks like this will continue into the 2009-10 year, when the university can determine actual, as opposed to projected, participation numbers for its newly added women's sport of competitive cheer, according to the news release.
Volleyball coach Robin Sparks and several team members filed a suit last month, accusing the school of failing to provide female students with equal opportunity to participate in varsity intercollegiate athletics.
Sparks testified that the school manipulated the rosters of its athletic teams to make them appear more in line with the gender makeup of the school's population.
The school's president, John Lahey, had denied that he was targeting female athletes when he decided which programs to cut.
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The testimony from other sports teams in the case was pretty damning.
At one point, the softball coach Germaine Fairchild testified that two athletic department administrators told her to carry at least 25 players on the softball team roster when reports were submitted in the fall to the federal government. But she says she was only given money to fund 17-player rosters.
