By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Dartmouth College President Philip Hanlon acknowledged Friday that the school is in violation of Title IX statutes, and that he is bringing back the five varsity teams cut as part of an effort to come into compliance.
“We sincerely apologize that this process has been, and continues to be, so painful to our current and former student-athletes and all who support them,” Hanlon said.
Hanlon announced Friday that the school will reinstate the five varsity teams eliminated in July after months of pressure from athletes and alumni, including the threat of a lawsuit over Title IX violations.
California attorney Arthur Bryant was hired by members of the women’s swimming and diving and golf teams to file a Title IX complaint against the school. The parties settled Thursday night, according to Bryant.
“Dartmouth screwed up royally,” Bryant said. “It publicly announced it was eliminating teams to comply with Title IX when their elimination flagrantly violated Title IX.”
The school is bringing back the women’s and men’s swimming and diving, women’s and men’s golf, and men’s lightweight rowing teams after discovering that by cutting the teams the school had put itself into a Title IX violation.
The school cut the teams in July in an effort to slow the financial losses because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The school estimates a $150 million operating loss because of the shutdowns and other measures.
However, California attorney Arthur Bryant sent a letter to College President Hanlon last month alerting him to the fact that the college was already violating Title IX rules before it cut the teams, and the eliminations further put the school in violation.
“Based on these facts, unless Dartmouth agrees to reinstate the women’s golf and swimming & diving teams or has some plans for compliance with Title IX we do not yet know, we will seek a preliminary injunction immediately reinstating and preserving these teams,” Bryant wrote.
Title IX requires that schools provide equal access to all programs, including sports. The school already had a gap in the total number of opportunities for women athletes, according to Bryant. Without the five teams, there are even fewer opportunities for women Dartmouth students to engage in sports based on the student body population, according to Bryant.
After reviewing the process the college used to come to its decision to cut the teams, Hanlon said they realized mistakes had been made.
“To determine which teams would be eliminated, Director of Athletics Harry Sheehy and his team established a series of factors and considerations to be used in their assessment. We have recently learned that elements of the data that Athletics used to confirm continued Title IX compliance may not have been complete,” Hanlon wrote.
The school is also hiring an outside law firm, Holland & Knight, to conduct a gender equity review of the varsity athletic program; have the Ivy League athletic association conduct a compliance review of NCAA rules; and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dartmouth’s auditors, will conduct a process-and-control review of Dartmouth Athletics.
The school’s move to cut the teams had almost immediate blowback from student athletes and alumni. A group of Dartmouth families and alumni started the organization Save Dartmouth Swimming & Diving, which has focused on a letter writing campaign, as well as contacting members of the alumni council and an attempt to have the U.S. Department of Education intervene.