SUNY Albany Hit with Title IX Lawsuit After Eliminating Women’s Tennis Team [UPDATE]
Last Updated on August 19, 2021
Pejovic et al. v. State University of New York at Albany, et al.
Filed: September 29, 2017 ◆§ 1:17-cv-01092-TJM-DJS
SUNY Albany and its athletics director are facing a Title IX lawsuit over their allegedly 'secretive' decision to cut the school's nine-member women's tennis team.
Case Updates
August 19, 2021 – SUNY Albany Handed Win After Judge Grants Summary Judgment
The judge overseeing the case detailed on this page granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment after finding that the relief requested by the plaintiffs would potentially duplicate or undermine the efforts of SUNY Albany’s resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education.
In an order issued July 6, 2021, U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy stressed that the defendant had already entered into a resolution agreement with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Education, that aimed to address the Title IX concerns within the school’s athletic department.
The August 2017 agreement, according to court documents, allows the OCR to monitor the university’s activities until it has determined that the school has fulfilled the terms of the agreement and is compliant with Title IX. Moreover, SUNY Albany is required to provide data and other information “in a timely manner” and allow OCR to visit the university, interview staff and students, and request additional information to determine whether the terms of the agreement have been fulfilled. If SUNY Albany fails to satisfy the terms of the resolution, the OCR can extend its monitoring period and ultimately take away the school’s federal funding, Judge McAvoy noted.
Given the agreement’s goal of bringing SUNY Albany into Title IX compliance and the OCR’s role in enforcing the terms of the agreement, the injunctive relief sought by the plaintiffs would “likely duplicate, or even undermine, the efforts of the OCR and the provisions of the Resolution Agreement,” Judge McAvoy found. The judge noted that while “[n]o party here contends that the University has fully complied with the Agreement”—and SUNY Albany itself has admitted that effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have “devastated” its budget and “undermined efforts” to achieve such compliance—the process set forth in the agreement is still in motion.
Judge McAvoy found that the plaintiffs, by seeking injunctive relief, were essentially looking to “monitor, implement, and alter” the resolution agreement, which the judge concluded “is unavailable.”
The July order further granted summary judgment to the defendant on the Title IX and age discrimination claims brought by the former women’s tennis team’s coach, finding that he had failed to establish a case for either claim.
Judge McAvoy noted that while such a conclusion is “hardly satisfying” to the plaintiffs, “the law requires such an outcome.”
The State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany) and its athletics director find themselves as defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit filed in the wake of the school’s elimination of its women’s tennis team, ostensibly as a result of financial strain. The suit’s five named plaintiffs—a group that includes the team’s former head coach, who the case says was fired shortly after the team was disbanded—alleges the defendants have committed “long-standing and ongoing violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” From the complaint:
The 62-page lawsuit alleges SUNY Albany discriminates against women by intentionally providing “substantially fewer and poorer” opportunities with sports than it does for men, and neglects to even consider which sports opportunities women want and in which they can participate. Moreover, the defendants, in addition to allegedly willfully ignoring Title IX requirements, made matters worse by firing the women’s tennis coach on the basis of his age, deeming the 65-year-old man “old enough to retire,” the lawsuit reads.
The case goes on to describe a complaint filed by the former women’s tennis coach with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) asking the agency to look into SUNY Albany’s athletics programs. After the OCR published its findings, the Department of Education and SUNY Albany reached a “toothless negotiated agreement” that requires the school to cease its supposed Title IX violations no later than the 2020-2021 school year, the case reads, noting that the deal does not include a sanctions provision should the university fail to comply with Title IX before the deadline.
“Defendant SUNY Albany intentional concealed its decision to terminate the women’s tennis program in order to deprive [the plaintiffs] of any effective opportunity to contest the decision,” the lawsuit argues. “This secret decision also denied [the plaintiffs] any opportunity to plan for, protect themselves against, or mitigate the sudden and devastating impacts on their personal and academic live and sports careers.”
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