Want of a Horse

Faithful blog readers who follow our coverage of Regents meetings, and public comments therein, will know that a brouhaha at Davis has developed over the discontinuation of the equestrian program there. From the Chronicle of Higher Education: 

This academic year, the women’s equestrian team at the University of California at Davis completed a dominant season, winning all five of its conference matches and its third conference championship. But in January, with no warning, the university announced it was cutting equestrian as an intercollegiate sport. The decision came too late for team members to transfer to another program. Some incoming students who’d been recruited as athletes were denied regular admission to UC-Davis, several parents said, leaving them with no college to attend at all.

To justify their decision, university officials used a faulty report, supporters allege, riddled with errors and written by a consulting firm that recently stirred controversy for a similar analysis at another university. What’s more, administrators privately signaled nearly a year ahead of the announcement that they were planning to eliminate equestrian, according to emails obtained by the supporters’ group via a public-records request and shared with The Chronicle. At the same time, athletics officials continued to recruit athletes and solicit donations to support the team until shortly before they announced the team was being cut.

...Advocates are pursuing legal remedies — including a lawsuit in state court alleging that the athletics director and others engaged in fraudulent activity by misleading the recruits and assuring coaches, families, and students that the program was continuing. A parent with close knowledge of the situation told The Chronicle that a detective with the university’s police department was also investigating possible wire fraud, because the university continued to solicit donations for the team after it had effectively chosen to shutter it.

And a lawyer has warned the university that cutting the equestrian team could run afoul of Title IX, which requires gender equity in athletic expenditures and participation. The lawyer, Arthur Bryant, won a landmark settlement in April against San Diego State University for failing to provide as much in athletic scholarships to women as it paid to men. A university spokesperson declined to make anyone available to discuss the equestrian team because of the legal challenges. An earlier university statement said campus leaders believed they followed the proper procedures, but they were conducting a review “to evaluate financial records and reporting practices to determine whether expenses were accurately represented to decision-makers and other appropriate authorities.”

At a time when many colleges are considering cuts in athletics, UC-Davis is a case study in how missteps and poor communication can lead to legal risks and tense conflict with athletes and their parents, who have spent years and small fortunes pursuing dreams of intercollegiate sports...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-university-halts-its-top-ranked-equestrian-team-spurring-an-uproar.