Iowa Verdict in Context

Earlier this month, former athletic administrator Jane Meyer won her case and a sizeable $1.43 million jury award against the University of Iowa. I was traveling out of the country when it happened and could not blog about it until now, but my delay in posting in no way detracts from what big news I think this is. Meyer sued the university for retaliation in violation of Title IX when she was transferred outside the department the day after she submitted a memo to the athletic director describing the sex discrimination she had experienced and witnessed within the department. Some of her grievances had to do with the athletic director's decision to reassign some of Meyer's responsibilities to a newly-created deputy AD, a position filled by a male who was paid $70,000 more than Meyer. Meyer also objected to the firing of female head coaches, including her own partner Tracey Griesbaum who lost her position at the helm of the university's field hockey team even though an internal investigation cleared her of the complaints of bullying and harassment for which she had been accused. (Griesbaum's own lawsuit against the university is still pending.)

The jury agreed that the university violated Meyer's civil rights and awarded her $374,000 for back pay, $444,000 for past emotional distress, and $612,000 for future emotional distress. She is reportedly seeking an additional $2 million in reimbursement for legal fees and in punitive damages which may be allowable based on the jury's finding that the university's violations were "willful."
Meyer is not the first veteran female leader in college athletics to challenge sex discrimination and retaliation within her department. Just last fall a jury in California awarded over $3 million to Beth Burns after seeing her university's stated reason for firing her as pretext for retaliation. In another recent example, the University of North Florida paid over a million to a terminated female coach last year.  In the more distant past, we've blogged about jury awards and settlements for female coaches and administrators who endured retaliation and sex discrimination at Fresno State, Florida Gulf Coast University, Iowa State, and Cal-Berkeley, for example. Cases currently pending against Minnesota-Duluth and Griesbaum's case against Iowa could add to this list as well.

Together these cases remind us that even in this Title IX era, college athletics is a contentious workplace for female coaches and administrators. And when you consider that lawsuits are likely only filed when the plaintiff has nothing left to lose, it is easy to imagine that there are likely countless unknown other examples of discrimination that are almost as bad. When the media bemoans the dearth of female leadership in college athletics, these lawsuits hold some clues about many of the reasons why.

But the success of these plaintiffs also raise a critical question about how much litigation it will take to see athletic departments change their culture and behavior towards female coaches and administrators. Why wasn't Fresno State, for example, enough of a warning to prevent Iowa from repeating its pattern of mistakes?  It's important that the Polk County, Iowa, jury sent a strong message to college and university athletic departments that retaliation and discrimination doesn't pay, but are other athletic departments getting the message?