Judge rules that cheerleading is not a sport

United States District Judge Stefan Underhill has ruled cheerleading is not a sport and that Quinnipiac University broke the law when redrawing funds from the women’s volleyball team and redirected it to cheerleading squad.

Underhill’s conclusion was that Quinnipiac University discriminated on a sex basis the equal athletic participation opportunities for women during the academic years of 2009 and 2010. The story is a result of the volleyball team suing the school under the claim that redirecting funds that were intended for women’s volleyball team to a cheerleading squad broke the civil rights legislation that says men and women’s athletic program should receive equal funding. Also the school insisted on considering modern competitive cheerleading is a sport and the members of the cheerleading squad as women athletes, the judge did not agree saying that the criteria of Title IX was not met and therefore cheerleading could not be defined as a sport.

Although Quinnipiac is a private school it receives some federal funding, so they have to respect Title IX requirements and the judge’s decision, who says that Quinnipiac has 60 days to come up with an idea to keep the volleyball team. The point is that the funds for the cheerleading squad came from cutting funds from the women volleyball team: 1,250 dollars for each cheerleader a year. The players of the volleyball team say that the school has a history on discriminating against women athletes and manipulating funds intended for women athletes. For example, the school over counts female runners: they are counted for indoor track, outdoor track and cross country, even though the team is the same and eliminated men’s outdoor and indoor track, keeping the same number of male runners on a single track to make it appear as if there is an equal number of male and female athletes.