In a move that could have far-reaching consequences for the current, collective-driven system of college sports NIL, a group of 32 University of Oregon female athletes filed a class action sex-discrimination lawsuit against their school Friday.
The named plaintiffs, which include 26 members of Oregon’s women’s beach volleyball team and six club rowers, accuse the soon-to-be Big Ten university of violating federal law by depriving them of equal athletic financial aid and other resources. Those other disproportionate resources, the plaintiffs allege, are the benefits UO athletes receive through Oregon’s NIL collective, Division Street, and Opendorse, which hosts the Ducks’ official NIL marketplace.
Though Division Street is a separate legal entity from Oregon, the plaintiffs are attempting to hold the school responsible for what they say are the disparate opportunities the for-profit entity provides female athletes as compared with the men. Crediting the added publicity and support male athletes receive, the lawsuit cites On3’s NIL player valuation rankings, which recently showed three Oregon football players listed among the top-100 college athletes nationally.
The plaintiffs’ 115-page complaint, filed Friday morning in federal court, grew out of a detailed investigation published in July by The Oregonian, which determined the university was likely deficient in five of the nine areas that Title IX mandates equal treatment.
Oregon’s beach volleyball players, the newspaper reported, had never received athletic grants-in-aid during the program’s decade in existence, and was the only Power Five public school program without any scholarship funding in the 2021-22 academic year.
Citing data Oregon submits annually to the Department of Education, the lawsuit notes that while women make up 49% of UO athletes, the school spends only a quarter of its total athletic budget and 15% of its recruiting dollars on them. Accordingly, the lawsuit states, Oregon would have to pay $4.5 million to its female athletes for the past five years to account for just those discrepancies it makes public in compliance with the Equity in Athletic Disclosure Act.
A school spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
The rowing plaintiffs contend that the university, despite being out of Title IX compliance, refuses to sponsor their sport at the varsity level, thus depriving them of the ability to earn athletic aid and hindering their futures.
The athletes are being represented by prominent Title IX attorney Arthur Bryant, of law firm Bailey & Glasser; he is also currently representing female athletes in sex discrimination cases against Fresno State, San Diego State and the University of Central Oklahoma. Bryant also successfully won against Clemson in 2021, forcing the school to reinstate its men’s track and field and cross country teams, claiming their elimination amounted to gender discrimination.
Bryant has previously signaled an interest in challenging the way some experts believe the college sports system has skirted gender equity requirements by working hand-in-hand with ostensibly independent NIL collectives. In September, he told On3, “NIL and Title IX are about to collide—and it’s just a question of when and where.”
Evidently, the answer is: now and Eugene, Ore.
Up until this point, attention had been focused on the ways the legislative or executive branches—as opposed to the courts—might try to rein in collectives.
In January, The Drake Group, a college sports reform organization, sent a 10-page letter to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, asking it to “clarify any confusion” over Title IX’s application to NIL.
“We do not write to suggest that OCR stem this flow of cash to college athletes,” the letter stated, “but rather to alert OCR that this cash is, with the blessing and/or cooperation of the 1000+ universities in the NCAA, flowing predominantly to men.”
Two months later, a delegation from The Drake Group met with OCR staff, later expressing their disappointment when the agency indicted it would take no proactive measures absent formal Title IX complaints.
Since taking over as NCAA president earlier this year, Charlie Baker has repeatedly voiced concerns that collaborations between collectives and schools could pose Title IX problems, imploring Congress to help reconcile the situation.
In early 2022, as Sportico was first to report, the NCAA began probing the relationship between the collective and Oregon, though nothing came of it. Seeded by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and a group of other major UO boosters, Division Street is run by Rosemary St. Clair, a former Nike VP.
Beyond scholarship monies, the Oregon athletes are seeking damages for gender discrepancies in the other ways UO’s athletic money has been allocated, including facilities, mental health services, travel accommodations, daily allowances, equipment, locker room provisions and the compensation of its coaches.
The women’s beach volleyball team practices and plays its matches in a public park, which, according to the complaint, “has bathrooms with no doors on the stalls, and is frequently littered with feces, drug paraphernalia, and other discarded items.”
In a statement through Bailey & Glasser, Ashley Schroeder, the lead plaintiff and beach volleyball captain, said her team was unable to practice this week after a person was found dead near the courts it typically uses.
“We cannot use the restrooms there, because they’re not safe and, sometimes, people are in the stalls using drugs,” Schroeder said. “But the men’s teams have full scholarships, multimillion-dollar budgets, and professional-level, state-of-the-art facilities. I love the University of Oregon, but this hurtful, outrageous sex discrimination has to stop.”
The complaint includes photos of the Ducks’ opulent football facilities, which include an “athlete fitting room” featuring a replica wooden throne from The Kingsman movie franchise.
“The treatment and benefits provided to the men on the football team are especially relevant and highlighted because those men, more than one-third of Oregon’s male student-athletes, receive incredibly exorbitant treatment and benefits—treatment and benefits far superior to those provided to any female student-athletes at Oregon,” the lawsuit states.
Notably, it was former Oregon women’s basketball star Sedona Prince, who helped spur the national conversation over college athlete gender inequality with a 38-second TikTok video during the March 2021 NCAA women’s tournament in San Antonio. Prince juxtaposed a clip of the women’s “weight room,” a small dumbbell rack, with that of the convention-sized training facilities at the men’s tournament in Indianapolis. Prince transferred from Oregon to TCU in April.