Seventeen female athletes have filed a sex discrimination class action lawsuit against San Diego State University (SDSU) under Title IX laws. The lawsuit alleges that the university has deprived women of over $1.2 million in “equal athletic financial aid” over two academic years.
According to the suit, SDSU eliminated its women’s rowing program to reduce the number of women scholarship athletes and be Title IX compliant. The university is focusing on its men’s basketball team’s Final Four bid, which has netted the university an extra $500,000 in future NCAA Tournament distributions.
SDSU is reportedly under consideration to join the Pac-12, which would enrich the university by millions of dollars each year. The plaintiffs allege both gender equity violations, as well as retaliation against female athletes who joined the lawsuit.
SDSU has argued against the lawsuit by citing NCAA’s scholarship limits for each sport and by claiming that athletes have not explicitly made requests for more scholarship money that was then denied by the school. The university claims that its funding for women’s scholarships “remains among the highest” in its conference and across the country.
The court is yet to rule on whether the equal athletic financial aid and retaliation claims can proceed to the discovery phase. This lawsuit brings attention once again to gender equity issues in sports and how universities fulfill their obligations under Title IX laws.
On a lighter note, San Diego State University (SDSU) and Florida Atlantic University (FAU) find themselves facing each other in the NCAA Final Four tournament. This historic match-up brings particular excitement to the Gaudette sisters.
Lindsay Gaudette, an SDSU senior, has a sister, Riley, who is a freshman at FAU. The two sisters hope their respective teams advance to the national championship, but their father, Chris Gaudette, hopes Miami wins as it is in his bracket.
The game will mark the first time both teams have made it to the Final Four. The sisters are excited to watch the game together with their father, who will travel to Houston for this historic event.
Another story that has made its way into sports headlines comes from golf influencer Paige Spiranac. Spiranac unintentionally jinxed her favorite university’s basketball team by revealing her superstitions.
She spoke about her alma mater’s achievement of making it to the Final Four stage of the 2023 NCAA tournament on Twitter after keeping quiet to avoid jinxing it. Despite claiming that mentioning it now does not count, she feels that saying something now will bring bad luck.
Spiranac also shared the superstitions she used while playing golf. For example, she never used a golf ball with number one on it, ate the same breakfast for days after playing well and marked her ball with a quarter that was heads up. Although these superstitions did not particularly work for her in golf, she felt compelled to do them every time.
Spiranac entertains her followers with her takes on golf, other sports, and her physique, and is a popular figure in the world of sports influencers.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
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