Federal Court Approves Class Action Settlement Requiring University of Central Oklahoma to Provide Female Student-Athletes with Equal Treatment and Opportunities, Develop Gender Equity Plan, and Comply with Title IX
For more information, contact:
Lori Bullock, lbullock@baileyglasser.com, 515-416-9051
Arthur Bryant, abryant@baileyglasser.com, 510-507-9972
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Joe Heaton approved a class action settlement yesterday that requires the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) to provide female student-athletes with equal treatment and opportunities, hire an outside expert to conduct a review of its intercollegiate athletic program, and develop and implement a Gender Equity Plan to bring the entire program into compliance with Title IX. The settlement also provides UCO’s women’s varsity indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, and cross country teams with specific relief starting in 2024-25, including equipment, supplies, transportation, publicity, and practice schedules equal to those provided to men’s varsity teams; access to college-level practice facilities; and the ability to host at least one home competition every year. And it prohibits UCO from retaliating against any of its female student-athletes in violation of Title IX.
The settlement resolves a Title IX class action filed against UCO in 2022 by Tatum Robertson and Eve Brennan, two members of the women’s varsity track & field teams, for discriminating against its female student-athletes. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination by any educational institution receiving federal funds.
The women’s indoor track & field, outdoor track & field, and cross-country teams at UCO—unlike any men’s teams—were provided no locker room, no competitive facility, and required to practice at a local middle school. When they complained about the unequal treatment they and other women athletes received, UCO fired their head coach.
“This lawsuit should not have been necessary,” said plaintiff and class representative Tatum Robertson. “We are delighted that UCO is finally going to stop discriminating against its women athletes and give them the equal treatment, benefits, and opportunities the law requires.”
“UCO has now agreed to everything we wanted from the start,” said plaintiff and class representative Eve Brennan. “That it took two years is particularly disturbing because Title IX has been the law for 52 years. But now UCO’s sex discrimination is going to stop.”
“We applaud the plaintiffs for fighting not only for themselves, but for all female student-athletes at UCO,” said plaintiffs’ counsel Lori Bullock of Bailey & Glasser, LLP. “We are honored to represent women who are willing to stand up to their universities and demand equality.”
“This is a great victory for Tatum Robertson, Eve Brennan, all of the women at UCO, and everyone who cares about gender equity,” said plaintiffs’ counsel Arthur Bryant of Bailey Glasser. “It confirms what, sadly, the history of Title IX has shown: if women want equality, they need to fight for it.”
Plaintiffs’ counsel also include Bailey Glasser partners Cary Joshi and Joshua Hammack, along with associate Sallie Gilbert, and Frank Frasier and Maureen Johnson of Frasier, Frasier, Hickman, LLP, in Tulsa, OK.
Bailey Glasser’s Title IX team has won groundbreaking settlements for female student-athletes at nine universities that announced they were eliminating women’s varsity intercollegiate athletic teams or refused to add new women’s varsity teams: Brown University, the College of William & Mary, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, East Carolina University, Dartmouth College, the University of St. Thomas, La Salle University, Dickinson College, and Florida State University. They also won an historic settlement – the first Title IX victory ever for male student-athletes – with Clemson University after the school became the first facing class actions suits by both its male and female student-athletes for violating Title IX by discriminating against them in different ways.
To see the UCO Title IX settlement agreement, click here.