Sunday, June 20, 2010

Trial in Conn. to find if cheerleading is sport - Boston.com

Trial in Conn. to find if cheerleading is sport - Boston.com

Trial in Conn. to find if cheerleading is sport

By Pat Eaton-Robb
Associated Press Writer / June 20, 2010
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HARTFORD, Conn.—A federal judge is being asked to decide whether cheerleading can be counted as a sport by schools looking for ways to meet gender-equity requirements.
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The issue is part of a lawsuit filed by five members of the volleyball team at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University and coach Robin Sparks last year after the school decided in a budgetary move to eliminate women's volleyball in favor of a competitive cheer squad.
Judge Stefan Underhill also will be asked to decide whether Quinnipiac improperly manipulates the size of the rosters of its other teams to get around complying with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics.
Underhill recently agreed to make the lawsuit a class action for all current and future female athletes at Quinnipiac.
The case goes to trial in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, beginning Monday.
Linda Carpenter, a professor emerita at Brooklyn College and co-author of the book "Title IX," said the women's sports community is watching the case closely.
"These are significant issues and a significant case," Carpenter said. "It provides a case, whichever way it goes, that can work its way up the judicial food chain,

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