University of Kentucky Title IX lawsuit news: US District Court ruling

This story was updated to add additional information about Monday’s ruling.

The University of Kentucky is in compliance with Title IX and does not need to add any women’s teams, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The decision comes in a lawsuit that alleged the university was violating the federal gender-equity law and should be required to add a women’s team in lacrosse, field hockey and/or equestrian.

In a 31-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell, of the Eastern District of Kentucky, found the university did not meet two parts of the three-part test of the participation-opportunities aspects of Title IX, according to a 1979 interpretation of the law.

However, Caldwell wrote that the plaintiffs also had to prove that there are enough female students at, or admitted to, the university who are “actually able to compete at a varsity level in a sport and that there are enough of them to form a team.” She ruled that the plaintiffs could not show this to be the case in any of the three sports at issue.

Among other arguments, the plaintiffs had cited the number of female students on lacrosse, field hockey and equestrian club teams.

Caldwell wrote: “These numbers may prove an interest in various sports, but they are not evidence of the numbers of female students at UK who can play at the varsity level or even have the interest in doing so. Not all members of a club team have the ability for or interest in varsity competition.”

The named plaintiffs in the suit, which had been granted class-action status, are former university students Ala Hassan and Lisa Niblock. In addition to the creation of a new team or teams, they sought a mandate for UK to undergo a Title IX compliance review — presided over by a neutral third party — in addition to the development of a gender equity compliance plan overseen by the court to ensure its implementation for the next five years.

The two sides argued their case in a bench trial last year at the U.S. District Court building in Lexington. The plaintiff's lawyers, as well as UK's counsel, continued to plead their cases in various written arguments submitted to Caldwell in subsequent months prior to Monday's ruling.

UK spokesperson Jay Blanton released a statement, via email, on the university's behalf.

"With 23 sports, UK has the broadest based athletics program in the Southeastern Conference. The current sports offerings fully accommodate the interests and abilities of our undergraduate students. We are pleased that the Court recognized this and ruled in the university’s favor today," Blanton wrote.

Lori Bullock, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday's ruling.

The plaintiffs can appeal the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which is in Cincinnati. This court reviews appeals from cases adjudicated in the federal trial courts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan and Ohio.

The suit was filed in September 2019, but it has roots that reach back more than 10 years and to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that found the school was not offering enough participation opportunities to women. The finding resulted in an agreement under which Kentucky said it would assess female students’ athletic interests and abilities to determine whether it already was meeting their needs — and if not, it would add the sports those women wanted. The agency was to monitor UK’s progress.

During the course of the case, including the trial and post-trial filings, the matter took on national significance. Citing a variety of legal arguments, Kentucky contended that the judge should not apply the three-part test, which has formed a significant basis of Title IX enforcement for decades.

Under the test, a school can be in compliance with the participation aspects of law in any one of these ways:

— Participation opportunities for men and women is substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.

— The institution has a history and continuing practice of expanding participation opportunities responsive to the developing interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

— The institution is fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

Caldwell rejected Kentucky’s argument in advance of the trial. But in July — nearly a year after the trial and months after post-trial briefs had been filed — Kentucky sought reconsideration of that decision. The university cited a Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned a 40-year-old precedent that has guided how federal agencies administer various laws. Again, this raised the prospect of Caldwell setting aside the three-part test.

In Monday’s ruling she again declined to do so.

That resulted in Caldwell applying the three-part test.

She found that the plaintiffs had proved that UK “does not provide females (sic) students with intercollegiate varsity participation opportunities in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollment.” In the 2022-23 academic year, women comprised just under 58% of UK’s enrollment. She wrote that the parties had agreed that even including spots in cheer, dance and junior varsity soccer, UK would need to offer 59 additional opportunities for women. And she rejected UK’s argument that those sports should be counted. So the gap was 116 opportunities.

Caldwell also found that UK did not prove “either a history or a continuing practice of program expansion that is demonstrably responsive to the developing interests and abilities of its female students.” In addition to the issues with cheer, dance and JV soccer, she wrote that Kentucky’s procedures for determining whether to add teams were problematic in terms of methodology inconsistency. She noted that since 2017, when it established its Sports Review Committee, Kentucky has added just one sport for women: STUNT. And she wrote that before adding the team, UK surveyed its students and did other research, including attending a national championship, speaking with STUNT’s national governing body and reviewing the sport’s status among colleges and high schools nationally and with the Kentucky High School Athletic Association.

At the same time, she wrote, UK “does not present evidence of a plan of program expansion pursuant to which the committee regularly reviews multiple measures of developing interest and ability, like those reviewed for [STUNT], to expand its varsity participation opportunities for females.”

However, Caldwell ruled the plaintiffs could not make their case regarding Kentucky’s alleged failure to address unmet student interest and ability in women’s lacrosse, field hockey and/or equestrian. She wrote that in surveys from 2019 to 2023, “not nearly enough students who indicated an interest and ability in equestrian, field hockey, or lacrosse provided contact information to field a team in any of those sports.”

She also wrote that “neither the club lacrosse nor field hockey club teams has won any championships or otherwise obtained recognition for the skill level of the team or its individual players.” And while the equestrian team has won accolades at the club level, most of the club’s team members “fall below the skill level required for a varsity team.”

Caldwell did, however, add: "The accomplishments of the club equestrian team and the survey numbers indicating significant interest and self-reported ability to compete at the varsity level in the sport should motivate the (Sports Review Committee) to research the viability of a varsity hunt seat equestrian team … and should include measures of interest and ability beyond the survey.”

USA TODAY contributed to this report.

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.