Female Athletes File Sex Discrimination Class Action Against Concordia University Irvine for Deciding to Eliminate Women’s Teams and Violating Title IX

Seek Preservation of Swimming & Diving and Tennis Teams,
Equal Participation Opportunities for Women in Varsity Sports

Nine female athletes at Concordia University Irvine (CUI) filed a sex discrimination class action against the school late yesterday for discriminating against its female student-athletes and potential student-athletes in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, charges CUI with violating Title IX by depriving women of equal opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics. The school just announced it was planning to eliminate the women’s swimming & diving and tennis teams, along with the men’s teams, when it is already providing women with far fewer opportunities than the law requires.

“We are suing CUI because it refused to comply with Title IX, provide women with equal opportunities to participate in varsity sports, and preserve our teams unless we did,” said Alexandra Grant, a sophomore on the women’s swimming & diving team. “We wish it wasn’t necessary, but we are doing what all women faced with sex discrimination need to do: stand up and fight for our rights.”

CUI female athletes Mikayla Barre, Jessica Bear, Kiera Gutierrez, Bryn Johnson, Alexandra Leland, Ruby McCullough, Aliyah Treadwell, and Carissa Ward are also plaintiffs in the case.

“CUI’s decision to eliminate the women’s swimming & diving and tennis teams is a flagrant violation of Title IX,” said Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, P.C., in Oakland, CA, lead counsel for the women. “According to the most recent publicly available information, women were 59% of CUI’s undergraduates in 2024-25, but they were given only 51.2% of the opportunities to participate in varsity sports. CUI needs to add about 100 opportunities for women to reach gender equity. It should not be eliminating any women’s teams.”

John Clune and Ashlyn Hare of Hutchinson, Black, and Cook in Boulder, CO; Eric Grover and Robert Spencer of Keller Grover in San Francisco, CA; and Anne Andrews and Robert Siko of Andrews & Thornton in Newport Beach, CA, are co-counsel for the women athletes.

On May 20, 2025, CUI announced it had decided to eliminate its women’s and men’s swimming & diving and tennis teams for financial reasons. A few days later, it emailed all of the athletes on the other teams to “reassure” them their “program remains secure” because CUI is “currently in the midst of a major $17.5 million construction project that includes a new 19,000-square-foot facility featuring a state-of-the-art  weight room, locker rooms, and modern training room space…In addition, the University has invested over $7million in upgrades to our baseball, softball, and soccer/track/lacrosse facilities – including the installation of lights on each of our outdoor fields.”

CUI did not send this email to the athletes on the women’s (or men’s) swimming & diving or tennis teams. But other athletes did.

On June 16, 2025, Bryant emailed a letter to CUI President Michael A. Thomas, PhD, explaining that the elimination of the women’s teams violated Title IX and requesting a meeting to discuss preserving the teams and ensuring CUI’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.” CUI fails that test.

According to the most recent Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data that CUI submitted and verified to the U.S. Department of Education as accurate, CUI had a total undergraduate population of 1,413 in 2023-24, including 833 women and 580 men. So, undergraduate enrollment was 58.95% women. (The 2024-25 EADA data is not yet publicly available.) The school’s intercollegiate athletic teams had 625 athletes: 328 women and 297 men. They were only 52.48% women—creating a gap of 6.47% between the women’s undergraduate enrollment rate and their intercollegiate athletic participation rate. CUI needed to add women’s opportunities to comply with Title IX.

But CUI just announced that it is going to eliminate two women’s teams that included 38 women (along with two men’s teams that include 33 men) in 2023-24. As a result, the school’s athletic participation rate for women will decrease when it needs to increase.

Based on the most recent publicly available numbers, if the women’s teams are cut, CUI will need to add 112 participation opportunities for women to achieve gender equity. This is, of course, far more opportunities to participate in varsity athletics than the women’s swimming & diving and tennis teams provide.

After CUI received Bryant’s June 16 letter, the lawyers for the school and the women met numerous times over a month. But, on July 17, the school refused to agree to continue the women’s teams and come into compliance with Title IX. So, the women filed suit.

Along with the class action, the women filed an application for a temporary restraining order preserving the women’s teams while the case proceeds. A date for a hearing on the motion has not yet been set.

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Contacts:
Arthur Bryant, 510-507-9972, arthur@arthurbryantlaw.com
John Clune, 970-390-5480, john.clune@hbcboulder.com

Links:
Complaint filed August 13, 2025
Application for TRO Preserving Women’s Teams filed August 13, 2025