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The Glitch in the System: Concordia University's Botched Equation of 'Progress' and 'Equity'
You’ve got to appreciate the sheer audacity. It’s the kind of move you see in a magic show—a grand flourish with one hand to distract you from what the other is doing. In May, Concordia University Irvine, a private Division II school, announced it was cutting four sports teams, including women’s swimming and tennis. The reason? The usual somber recitation of financial prudence: “increasing operational costs,” “facility limitations,” a model that was simply “not sustainable.” The cuts, they calculated, would save them a cool $550,000 a year.
But then came the grand flourish. Just a week after pleading poverty, the university’s athletic director, Crystal Rosenthal, sent a beaming email to the remaining athletes. In it, she boasted of a massive $25.5 million investment into the school’s athletic infrastructure. Let that number sink in. A new 19,000-square-foot facility, a state-of-the-art weight room, locker rooms, training spaces, plus another $8 million for upgrades to the baseball, softball, and soccer facilities. This, she wrote, “represents our belief in the future of our athletic programs.”
When I first read about that email, I honestly just sat back in my chair, speechless. It’s one thing to make a tough financial call. It’s another thing entirely to tell one group of athletes their dreams are an unaffordable luxury while simultaneously building a multimillion-dollar palace for others. This isn't a financial decision; it’s a declaration of priorities, written in concrete and steel. How does an institution justify a multi-million-dollar capital expenditure as essential while simultaneously arguing that a half-million dollars in operational costs for established teams is an existential threat?
The Inescapable Logic of Title IX
This is where the story pivots from a simple, if galling, budget cut into a federal case. Nine female athletes, represented by the powerhouse attorney Arthur Bryant, called the university’s bluff. They filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that this wasn't just unfair—it was a flagrant violation of Title IX.
For those who aren’t steeped in collegiate sports law, Title IX is essentially an algorithm for fairness. It’s a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government. In sports, one of its core tenets is proportionality—in simpler terms, the percentage of athletic opportunities for male and female athletes should be roughly equal to their respective enrollment percentages.
At Concordia, the numbers tell a story the university’s press releases tried to obscure. Women make up 59% of the undergraduate student body. Yet they were receiving only 51.2% of the roster spots in athletics. According to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Concordia was already out of compliance and needed to add about 100 spots for women to achieve equity. Instead, they decided to cut them.
This is the kind of system failure that’s so obvious it’s almost beautiful in its clarity. It’s like a bank building a shiny new vault while telling depositors it can’t afford to keep their accounts open. The logic just doesn't compute. You can’t claim you’re building for the future while actively dismantling the very foundation of equity the law demands. What did they think was going to happen? Did they believe that the glow of new stadium lights would be bright enough to blind everyone to the numbers?
A federal judge, Fred W. Slaughter, was not blinded. He granted a preliminary injunction; in effect, Concordia University told to reinstate women’s teams while Title IX lawsuit plays out. He ordered them to provide full funding, staffing, and all the benefits of a varsity program. The system, for now, has been debugged.
A Recurring System Crash
The most fascinating part of this story is that it’s not unique. Concordia isn’t some rogue actor running a failed experiment. They’re simply the latest institution to run a playbook that has been proven, time and again, to fail. Since 2020, at least nine other schools—from major D-I programs like Iowa, UConn, and Clemson to smaller colleges—have tried to cut women’s sports and been forced by the courts to reinstate them.
It’s a pattern of institutional behavior that’s become predictable. A school wants to pour resources into its most visible, often revenue-generating, men’s programs. To balance the books (or, more accurately, to free up cash for capital projects), they target "non-essential" programs, which disproportionately end up being women’s teams with smaller budgets and less political clout. They roll the dice, hoping the athletes won’t have the resources or the will to fight back.
And time after time, they’re proven wrong. The speed and frequency of these legal challenges are just staggering—it means the gap between an athletic department's spreadsheet and the reality of federal law is being closed faster than these institutions can adapt.
Judge Slaughter’s ruling was nuanced. He acknowledged that Concordia might eventually comply with Title IX in other ways, perhaps by adding that planned women’s lacrosse team or through other "roster management efforts." The injunction is a stopgap, not a permanent solution. But it sends an unmistakable message. The question is no longer if universities will be held accountable for these transparently inequitable decisions, but when. At what point does this recurring system crash force a fundamental rewrite of the operating code for collegiate athletics?
The Real Upgrade Isn't a Building
Here’s the thing that gets lost in the talk of budgets and lawsuits: Concordia University was right about one thing. They do need to invest in the future. But they fundamentally misunderstood what that investment requires. They poured $25.5 million into hardware—buildings, weight rooms, and lights—while ignoring the software. The software is the people. It’s the principles of the institution. It’s the unwavering, legally mandated commitment to equity. A state-of-the-art facility is worthless if the institution operating it is running on an outdated moral framework. The most critical upgrade Concordia needs can’t be built with a construction crew; it has to be built in the boardroom, with a renewed commitment to the simple, powerful math of fairness.