District of Connecticut Law Clerks Society
a society for current and recent law clerks for the united states district court for the district of connecticut
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June 22, 2010
Judge Underhill Asked to Determine if Cheerleading is a Sport
U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill is presiding over a case in which he needs to decide whether cheerleading can be counted as a sport in meeting gender-equity requirements at schools.
Five members of the Quinnipiac University volleyball team filed a lawsuit last year when, due to budgetary issues, the school chose to cut women’s volleyball over a competitive cheer squad. Judge Underhill agreed to make the lawsuit a class action for all current and future female athletes at Quinnipiac.
The case involves Title IX issues, the federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics. Judge Underhill will need to decide whether Quinnipiac manipulates the size of its other teams’ rosters in order to improperly show compliance with this mandate. Last year, Underhill issued a temporary injunction preventing the school from disbanding the volleyball team based on the finding that the school was over-reporting athletic opportunities for its female athletes and under-reporting them for its men.
A lawyer for the plaintiff in the case said that the case is significant in that “this will be the first time a court has been asked to rule whether competitive cheer is a sport for Title IX purposes.” Judge Underhill recognized the competitive attributes of cheerleading and, in issuing his injunction, said that competitive cheer "although not presently an NCAA recognized sport or emerging sport, has all the necessary characteristics of a potentially valid competitive sport."
The trial began this week in the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. For more information, see the Connecticut Post article here: http://www.ctpost.com/sports/article/Trial-in-Conn-to-find-if-cheerleading-is-sport-530408.php.
Advisory Committee: Alyssa Esposito, Law Clerk to Judge Fitzsimmons; Krishna Patel, Assistant United States Attorney
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