Quinnipiac Univ. Women Have A Right To … Volleyball?

[NOTE! This post has been UPDATED]

Well, yes, according to the ACLU, which is attempting, so far successfully, to block Quinnipiac from eliminating its women’s volleyball team. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today:

A federal judge told Quinnipiac University today that it may not eliminate its women’s volleyball team — or cut spending on any women’s team — while the court hears a gender-equity lawsuit over the university’s plans to cut the volleyball team….

The Chronicle did not report, but the Hartford Courant did, that the women’s volleyball team “was eliminated along with men’s golf and men’s outdoor track March 5 when the school had to make budget cuts.”

[Quinnipiac University counsel Mary] Gambardella said that Title IX is not designed to micromanage a university’s budget.

“It’s not intended to compel people to maintain any particular program or cut any particular program,” she said.

You might think that Ms. Gambardella’s argument, invoking academic freedom as it does, would garner support from all those legal academics and others who are often quite outspoken in their opposition to perceived government intrusions into academic freedom. If you did think that, silly you.

Not long ago, for example, whole hosts of them insisted vociferously, and litigiously, that the right of law schools to exclude occasional campus recruiting visits from representatives of the Department of Defense was a precious right protected by academic freedom, a controversy that was extensively chronicled here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Funny, but none of the worthies quoted in those posts have been heard to speak up for Quinnipiac’s academic freedom.

UPDATE [ 27 May]

Inside Higher Ed reports today that Quinnipiac has decided not to eliminate its women’s volleyball team. Instead, it will eliminate its men’s indoor track team.