Beasley v. Alabama State University

• Decision Date: 09 June 1997
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 96-T-473-N.
• Parties: Audra BEASLEY, individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

966 F.Supp. 1117

Audra BEASLEY, individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 96-T-473-N.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

June 9, 1997.

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Joseph (Jay) Brady Lewis, Montgomery, AL, Andy D. Birchfield, Jr., Beasley, Wilson, Allen, Main & Crow, Montgomery, AL, J. Bernard Brannan, Jr., Brannan & Guy, Montgomery, AL, for plaintiff.

Solomon S. Seay, Jr., Montgomery, AL, Cynthia Williams Clinton, Mark Englehart, Kenneth Lamar Thomas, Thomas, Means & Gillis, P.C., Montgomery, AL, for defendants.

ORDER

MYRON H. THOMPSON, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Audra Beasley, a female student and former athlete at defendant Alabama State University (ASU), filed this lawsuit on March 15, 1996, claiming that ASU, through its trustees and various officers, was in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C.A. § 1681 et seq., and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. §§ 106.38, 106.41, as well as the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, as enforced through 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. Beasley contended that she and a class of similarly-situated aspiring female athletes at ASU whom she sought to represent were being injured by ASU's failure to furnish scholarships and intercollegiate competitive opportunities and facilities to women on an equal basis with male athletes at ASU, or to accommodate the existing interest of female athletes at the University to participate in athletics. Beasley sought broad declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief. On May 1, 1996, defendants moved to dismiss. On March 27, 1997, this court issued an order granting the motion to dismiss in part and denying it in part, ruling that ASU may be sued under Title IX, and that other individually-named, current officers of ASU may be sued in their official capacities for injunctive relief under Title IX and the fourteenth amendment. The court dismissed all other claims and defendants. The remaining defendants have now moved for reconsideration of the March 27 order, to the extent that it denied parts of the motion to dismiss. Defendants do not seek reconsideration of all grounds for dismissal argued in their motion to dismiss, but submit that the court failed to give proper consideration to three specific grounds asserted in that earlier motion: first, that Beasley's claims are time-barred; second, that she lacks standing to assert most of the claims advanced in her complaint, either on her own behalf or on behalf of a putative class, and that she now lacks standing to seek injunctive relief with regard to any claim; and third, that punitive damages are not recoverable against ASU. Beasley has since conceded the third point.

Rather than rule on the remaining aspects of the motion to reconsider in summary fashion, the court will elaborate upon the structure of Title IX violations, as this structure lends a peculiar complexion to the issues of standing and time limitations for bringing a Title IX complaint. The court hopes that this clarification will provide guidance to the parties through the future course of this litigation.

I. MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD

In considering a defendant's motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b), the court accepts the plaintiff's factual allegations as true, Jackson v. Okaloosa County, 21 F.3d 1531, 1534 (11th Cir.1994); Andreu v. Sapp, 919 F.2d 637, 639 (11th Cir.1990), and construes the complaint liberally in the plaintiff's favor. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974). The action may not be dismissed unless "it appears to a certainty," Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957), that the plaintiff can offer no set of facts supporting the relief requested. Scheuer, supra; Duke v. Cleland, 5 F.3d 1399, 1402 (11th Cir.1993).

II. BACKGROUND

The facts presented by Beasley are as follows.¹ Beasley is a female student and skilled athlete who was recruited to attend and play volleyball at ASU by its volleyball coach, with the promise of an athletic scholarship. She enrolled at ASU and played volleyball in the fall of 1991, her first semester, but was then told she would not receive the promised scholarship because of a lack of funds allocated by ASU for women's volleyball. Had funds for women's sports at ASU been allocated on a gender-equitable basis, Beasley believes, she would have qualified for and received the promised scholarship.

Even without a scholarship, Beasley continued to play on the women's team in the fall of 1991, but suffered a foot injury during an intercollegiate volleyball match that October, which injury was serious enough to require surgery. ASU continually refused to provide financial coverage for the surgery until December 1995, when it relented and paid for Beasley to have surgery. Male athletes who suffer comparable injuries are said by Beasley to receive relatively prompt treatment and financial support. Beasley, at times, and without much detail, also refers to other disparities in treatment she has experienced as a female athlete at ASU, including provision of practice facilities and coaching.

Beasley further claims that ASU fails to provide equal opportunities for women to participate in varsity college athletics, and fails to accommodate the desires and abilities of its women athletes to participate in varsity college athletics. Until her NCAA eligibility expired in 1996, Beasley continued to have interest in participating in varsity volleyball or other athletic programs at ASU.

III. DISCUSSION

A. The Structure of Title IX Claims

Title IX provides that: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." 20 U.S.C.A. § 1681(a). The Department of Education (DED), through its Office of Civil Rights (OCR), pursuant to Title IX's statutory delegation,² issued³ and now administers regulations implementing Title IX, including rules governing athletic scholarships, 34 C.F.R. § 106.37(c), and participation in collegiate athletics, 34 C.F.R. § 106.41.

The DED has also promulgated an official Policy Interpretation to guide the OCR's enforcement of Title IX in intercollegiate athletics. 44 Fed.Reg. 71413-23. The court defers substantially to an agency's interpretation of its own regulations, Martin v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Comm'n, 499 U.S. 144, 150, 111 S.Ct. 1171, 1175, 113 L.Ed.2d 117 (1991), particularly when such regulations have been issued pursuant to a statutory delegation. Roberts v. Colorado State Bd. of Agric., 998 F.2d 824, 828 (10th Cir.) (Title IX athletics action), aff'g Roberts v. Colorado State Univ., 814 F.Supp. 1507 (D.Colo.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1004, 114 S.Ct. 580, 126 L.Ed.2d 478 (1993).

The regulations and Policy Interpretation diagram three separate areas in which compliance, or failure to comply, with Title IX may be discerned: availability of athletic financial assistance or scholarships, see 34 C.F.R. § 106.37(c), and 44 Fed.Reg. at 71415; equivalent treatment with regard to athletic benefits and opportunities, see 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(2)-(10), and 44 Fed.Reg. at 71415-17; and effective accommodation of current student abilities and interest in athletic participation. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(1), and 44 Fed.Reg. at 71417-18. Following the approach of other courts, the court regards divergence from the nondiscrimination mandate in any one of these areas as constituting a separate and distinct type of claim, to be analyzed separately. See, e.g., Cohen v. Brown University, 991 F.2d 888, 897 & n. 11 (1st Cir.1993); Bryant v. Colgate University, 1996 WL 328446, CV-93-1029 (N.D.N.Y. June 11, 1996) at *3 ("The [policy interpretation] reasonably separates the regulations into three categories of athletics claims under Title IX."); Boucher v. Syracuse University, 1996 WL 328441, CV-95-620 (N.D.N.Y. June 12, 1996) at *1.

i. athletic scholarships

As a recipient of federal funds for education, ASU is required to "provide reasonable opportunities for [scholarship or grant] awards for members of each sex in proportion to the number of students of each sex participating in interscholastic or intercollegiate athletics." 34 C.F.R. § 106.37(c)(1). DED understands from this regulation that compliance should be determined by "whether proportionately equal amounts of financial assistance (scholarship aid) are available to men's and women's athletic programs," 44 Fed. Reg. at 71415, as measured by "dividing the amounts of aid available for the members of each sex by the numbers of male or female participants in the athletic program and comparing the results." Id. If this comparison results in a finding of "substantial" equality, or a disparity that "can be explained by ... legitimate, nondiscriminatory factors," compliance will be found. Id.

For purposes of this claim, unlike effective accommodation (see below), it is irrelevant what the overall participation rates of men and women in ASU's athletic programs are, relative to their enrollment. What matters is simply whether "the total amounts of scholarship aid made available to men and women [are] substantially proportionate to their participation rates." Id. The actual number or dollar value of individual scholarships made available to men and women is not directly compared.

Beasley specifically alleges that she failed to receive a promised athletic scholarship to play volleyball because of a lack of funds allocated for women's volleyball. Pl.'s Compl. at ¶ 6. Indeed, the complaint asserts that "Women students are denied an equal opportunity to compete for and to receive athletic scholarships.... Scholarships are also unequally distributed ...