U.S. District Court Judge Fred W. Slaughter issued one 29-page order granting the plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunction on Friday barring Concordia University Irvine (“CUI”) from “eliminating its women’s swimming and diving team, its women’s tennis team, and all other women’s varsity teams at CUI for the 2025-26 academic year, and for the duration of this case or until further order of this court.” The order continues: “To the extent these teams have already been eliminated, CUI will immediately reinstate them and provide the teams with funding, staffing and all other benefits commensurate with their status as intercollegiate varsity teams.”
The order was a complete and overwhelming victory over the motion for the female athletes.
The court casefiled in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accuses CUI of violating Title IX by depriving women of equal opportunity to participate in intercollegiate athletics. The school announced in May the elimination of the women’s swimming, diving and tennis teams, along with the men’s teams, even though women were already being given far fewer opportunities to participate.
“This decision shows why women must fight for the equality the law demands – and what they can achieve when they do,” said Alexandra Grant, a sophomore on the women’s swimming and diving team. “We are committed to upholding Title IX and are grateful for the Court’s decision. My teammates and I are eager to get back in the water as soon as possible.”
Female CUI athletes Mikayla Barre, Jessica Bear, Kiera Gutierrez, Bryn Johnson, Alexandra Leland, Ruby McCullough, Aliyah Treadwell and Carissa Ward are also plaintiffs in the case.
“The court’s thorough, compelling decision affirms what we have said from the beginning: CUI’s decision to eliminate the women’s swimming, diving and tennis teams was a blatant violation of Title IX,” the court said. Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, PC, in Oakland, CA, lead counsel for the women. “According to the most recent publicly available information, women made up 59% of CUI’s student body in 2024-25, but were given only 51.2% of the opportunities to participate in varsity sports. CUI must add approximately 100 opportunities for women to achieve gender equality. It should not lead to the elimination of each women’s teams.”
Erik Grover And Robert Spencer from Keller Grover in San Francisco, California, Anne Andries And Robert Elbow of Andrews & Thornton in Newport Beach, CA, and Johannes Clune And Ashlyn Haas van Hutchinson, Black and Cook in Boulder, CO, are co-advisors to the female athletes.
On May 20, 2025, CUI announced that it had decided to drop its women’s, men’s swimming, diving and tennis teams for financial reasons. A few days later, it emailed all athletes on the other teams to “assure” them that their “program remains safe” because CUI is “currently in the midst of a major $17.5 million construction project that includes a new 19,000-square-foot facility with a state-of-the-art weight room, locker rooms and modern training areas… In addition, the university has invested more than $7 million in upgrades to our baseball, softball and training facilities.” football/track/lacrosse facilities – including the installation of lighting on each of our outdoor fields.”
CUI did not send this email to the athletes on the women’s (or men’s) swimming and 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 retaining the teams and ensuring CUI’s Title IX compliance.
As the letter notes, Title IX prohibits educational institutions receiving federal funds from eliminating women’s teams for which interest, ability and competition are available unless “participation opportunities at the intercollegiate level are provided for male and female students in numbers substantially proportional to their respective enrollments.” CUI fails that test.
After CUI received Bryant’s June 16 letter, attorneys for the school and the women met several times over a month. But on July 17, the school declined to agree to continue the women’s teams and comply with Title IX. That’s why the women filed suit.
Now they have won a preliminary injunction that will keep their teams and all other women’s teams at CUI while the case continues.
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Contacts:
Arthur Bryant, 510-507-9972, [email protected]
Robert Siko, 949-748-1000, [email protected]
Eric Grover, 415-543-1305, [email protected]
John Clune, 970-390-5480, [email protected]
Left:
Order of the court granting the plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunction
Complaint
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