Federal Court Orders Hanover College to Preserve Women’s Swimming Team While Title IX Sex Discrimination Class Action Proceeds
Female Athletes Seeking Equal Opportunities to Participate in Varsity Sports
United States District Court Sarah Evans Barker issued a 23-page Order granting Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction yesterday barring Hanover College (“Hanover”) from “eliminating its women’s swimming team for the 2026-2027 academic year.” The Court’s Preliminary Injunction also ordered the school “to provide the women’s swim team with sufficient funding , staffing, and other benefits commensurate with its status as an intercollegiate team, including, but not limited to, retention of a coach to perform both coaching and recruiting roles and undertaking an appropriate lease arrangement allowing team members access to and use of a suitable swimming pool.”
The order was a critical victory on the motion for the women athletes. The team need only field a 12-member roster to compete.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in August, charges Hanover with violating Title IX by depriving women of equal opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics. The school announced the elimination of the women’s swimming team, along with the men’s team, in March, when it was already providing women with far fewer opportunities to participate. Women were over half of the undergraduates and getting less than one-third of the athletic opportunities.
“This shows why women have to fight for the equal opportunities that Title IX requires,” said Lucy Schoenlein, women’s team captain and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “My teammates and I are grateful to the court, eager to get back in the water, and committed to making sure this sex discrimination at Hanover ends.”
Women’s swimming team members Tallulah Frazier, Shelby Geraghty, and Anna Williams are also plaintiffs in the case.
“We said when this case was filed that Hanover’s elimination of its women’s swimming team was a flagrant violation of Title IX,” said Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, P.C., in Oakland, CA, lead counsel for the athletes. “As the Court found, although women make up 50.3% of undergraduate enrollment, they constitute only 32.9% of all varsity athletes. Hanover would have to add around 177 athletic opportunities to reach precise proportionality. It should be adding women’s teams, not eliminating them.”
“The erosion of equal opportunities for women happens one team at a time: it’s subtle but cumulative,” said Kimberly Dougherty of Justice Law Collaborative, P.C., in North Easton, MA, co-counsel for the women. "By granting this injunction, the Court has found that plaintiffs are likely to establish Hanover is discriminating against women by failing to offer them equal athletic opportunities. Hanover now has an opportunity to get compliant with Title IX, support the plaintiffs and all female athletes, and set an example for colleges and universities across the nation.“
Catherine Cawley of Justice Law Collaborative, P.C., Mark Sniderman of Sniderman Law in Indianapolis, IN, and Libby Harmon and Timothy Nevius of Nevius Legal are co-counsel for the women athletes.
On March 20, 2026, Hanover abruptly announced it was eliminating its women’s and men’s swimming teams. The teams’ members were stunned.
On May 26, 2026, Bryant, Harmon, and Nevius emailed a letter to Hanover President Lake Lambert, explaining that the elimination of the women’s team violated Title IX and requesting a meeting to discuss preserving the team and ensuring Hanover’s Title IX compliance.
As the letter noted, 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.” Hanover, it said, failed that test.
Despite that fact, Hanover had just announced that it was going to eliminate the women’s swimming team in 2026-27, along with the smaller men’s swimming team. As a result, the school’s athletic participation rate for women was going to decrease when it needed to increase. The letter asked Hanover to meet and reinstate the team.
The lawyers for the school and the women then met. But the school would not agree to continue the women’s team and come into compliance with Title IX. So, the women filed suit.
Now they have won a preliminary injunction preserving their team.
Contacts:
Arthur Bryant, 510-507-9972, arthur@arthurbryantlaw.com
Kim Dougherty, 508-230-2700, kim@justicelc.com
Links:
Class Action Complaint filed August 25, 2026
Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction filed August 25, 2026
Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction, October 13, 2026
Preliminary Injunction entered October 13, 2026