By James Sutherland on SwimSwam
Fifteen members of the Marshall University women’s swimming & diving team have filed a class-action lawsuit against the school over the decision to eliminate the program at the end of the 2025-26 season.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, accuses Marshall and its Board of Governors of violating the civil rights of current and potentially future female student-athletes under Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in all educational institutions that receive federal funds.
The swim & dive team members also asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent Marshall from eliminating any women’s team, including the swimming and diving team, while the court considers the merits of their claim.
SwimSwam reported on Feb. 13 that Marshall Athletics Director Gerald Harrison told women’s swim & dive team members that the program would be eliminated at the end of the season due to “financial reasons”.
Four days later, the school made the news official, announcing it would be adding a women’s STUNT program to maintain Title IX compliance while removing swimming & diving. The news was finalized just one day before the swim & dive program started competing at the American Conference Championships.
The swimmers and divers are being represented by Bailey & Glasser, led by partners Cary Joshi and Joshua I. Hammack, while lawyers Savanna Jones and Gabrielle Marcum are also part of the litigation team.
In a press release, Bailey & Glasser said an independent audit of Marshall’s Title IX compliance situation found that Marshall “shortchanged women by 210, 250, and 160 participation opportunities in the most recent three academic years.”
“This is not an especially close case,” Hammack said. “For years, Marshall has failed to offer women equal opportunities to participate in varsity sports. And now the school seeks to cut a women’s team. The brave women on the swimming and diving team want nothing more—but also nothing less—than the equality Title IX demands.”
On Tuesday, Marshall responded to the lawsuit and restraining order, with both Harrison and school President Brad Smith reiterating their belief that cutting the swim & dive team was the right move.
The school said in a statement it “reaffirms that the decision to discontinue the program is in the best interest of the institution as a whole.”
“This decision (to cut the program initially) was driven by three structural considerations: expanded participation opportunities under Title IX, long-term financial sustainability, and the facility and infrastructure requirements necessary to support the program,” Smith said.
“Our goal is to support our women’s swimming and diving student-athletes through this transition and prepare for a new era of expanded opportunities for women athletes at Marshall.”
The swim & dive team has an annual budget of $819,000, Harrison told the Marshall Board of Governors on Feb. 17, while Smith said adding a STUNT program would cost approximately $320,000 per year.
Harrison also told the Board of Governors that the swim & dive team’s facilities don’t meet NCAA competition standards, and the athletic department couldn’t commit the funding needed to upgrade the facilities and sustain the program, according to ESPN.
“Our months-long financial review of athletic programs at Marshall showed that the swimming and diving program, while successful in the classroom and in the pool, was not sustainable at the level necessary to compete for Division I championships.
“This was not an easy decision, but we believe it remains the best option at this time. Our priority remains the well-being of our student-athletes and the trust of the entire Marshall community.”
Marshall junior Allison Dodd, one of the 15 plaintiffs, said she and her teammates “were so surprised and so devastated when Marshall told us less than a week before our conference championship that it was planning to cut our team.”
“We literally had a two-minute meeting with the athletic director, and that was that,” she said, according to Bailey & Glasser. “We are heartbroken but ready to defend our rights. Marshall just has to do better by its women student athletes.”
Dodd, along with teammates Madison Bowen, Charlotte Thompson and Lauren Ramsey, recently attended the Capitol supporting SB-502, the “Women’s Collegiate Sports Protection Act,” which seeks to “protect and support” women’s collegiate Olympic sports and would allow public Division I universities in West Virginia, such as Marshall, to establish women’s athletic endowment funds. The swimmers believe the bill could provide an additional avenue for saving the team.
“We would love if this bill passes and we could eventually use it to support the team financially long term,” Bowen said, according to Bailey & Glasser. “But we also know it’s up to Marshall to do the right thing, even if it costs them money.”
Bailey & Glasser has represented several swim & dive teams that have gotten programs reinstated on Title IX grounds, including the College of William & Mary, East Carolina University and Dartmouth College.
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