Oregon allegedly threatened to cancel season if beach volleyball players complained

A Title IX complaint filed against the University of Oregon last December got more specific this week when new documents filed by the plaintiffs allege, among other complaints, that a senior Oregon athletics administrator threatened to cancel the 2021 beach volleyball season if players kept complaining about their circumstances. 

The suit was filed in December 2023 by 32 female student athletes from the university (26 beach volleyball players and six rowers), and alleges that UO has failed to "provide athletic treatment and benefits, financial aid, and participation opportunities to female students that are equal to the unparalleled athletic treatment and benefits, financial aid, and participation opportunities that it provides to male students," according this week's filing.

The suit was filed after an investigation by The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com that revealed numerous inequities between beach volleyball and other school-sponsored sports, most glaringly that the beach volleyball team does not have its own facility and is forced to practice at a public park; restrooms at that park are frequently locked and unavailable to the athletes because of community drug usage problems. 

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On Thursday, the plaintiffs filed a series of documents in response to Oregon’s motions in July for partial summary judgment, judgment on the pleadings and dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. Included in the filings are declarations from two of the plaintiffs, Ashley Schroeder and Josie Cole, who both played beach volleyball. The declarations are made under penalty of perjury. 

In her declaration, Schroeder writes that the team “made complaints to the Senior Women’s Administrator, Lisa Peterson, and to our coaches about the lack of a decent playing facility, the lack of athletic financial aid, and the conditions we were made to play in, among other things” during the 2020-2021 school year. 

Schroeder said the team had “at least two compliance meetings with Senior Women’s Administrator Peterson. She told us repeatedly that it was a unique season because of COVID and that all the benefits that we had been promised were put on hold until the pandemic was over. Administrator Peterson downplayed or ignored our reports of being denied basic support, gear, facilities, equipment, and financial aid. She told us that we were lucky to be playing and that if we continued to complain, the season would be cancelled.” 

Schroeder said she and her teammates “took this threat seriously.” 

The team's 2020 season — like others in spring sports around the country — ended early due to the pandemic. During the 2020-21 school year, many fall and winter sports schedules were affected.

In her declaration, Cole wrote that anytime athletes took their concerns to administrators Peterson was “full of excuses. She would blame COVID and warned that the season could get cancelled again. She promised that things would change, but instead they kept getting worse.”

Peterson left UO in September 2022 for a job at the Pac-12. She now works for the Big 12 as vice president of Olympic competition. Oregon's beach volleyball played 19 matches in 2021. Reached on Friday by USA TODAY Sports, Peterson vehemently denied Schroeder's and Cole's allegations.

Schroeder also recalled in her declaration a meeting in fall 2023 with Valerie Johnson, Oregon’s new Senior Woman Administrator who came to practice to speak with the team. Schroeder wrote that Johnson “had an almost scolding tone and said that Title IX does not require equality in sports. She demanded that individual players ‘raise your hand if you are really interested in this Title IX stuff.’ … it felt almost threatening, as though she was trying to identify and single out who the troublemakers were.”

Friday afternoon, Oregon athletics department Jimmy Stanton said in an email: "Like other claims alleged in the Complaint, the statements alleged ... are false and UO denies them.  Ms. Peterson and Ms. Johnson are and have always been stalwart Title IX champions.  Our previously filed Answer outlines UO’s denials of plaintiffs’ allegations.  We will address the new allegations in the court proceedings as well."

According to the case's current scheduling order, Oregon has until Dec. 9 to file replies to the plaintiffs’ responses.

A 2022 USA TODAY investigation found that 50 years after Congress passed Title IX, dozens of schools across the country, including at some of the biggest and most successful athletic departments, appear to remain in violation of the federal law. Often, there is little to no consequence for schools out of compliance with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights and most substantive punishments come as the result of civil litigation.

This story was updated to add new information.

Email Lindsay Schnell at [email protected] and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell