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Cheerleading not a sport, judge rules
Staff Writers
PUT away the pom-poms: Cheerleading is officially not a sport.
A federal judge in Connecticut ruled today the activity was "too underdeveloped and disorganised" to be considered a sport under the law.
Barring a successful appeal, the ruling means cheerleading funding cannot be used to satisfy the US Title IX law that requires equal public opportunities for male and female sports.
The case revolved around a March 2009 lawsuit from members of Quinnipiac University's women's volleyball team, which claimed the Hamden, Connecticut, school's plan to eliminate the team while creating a new varsity sport called "competitive cheerleading" was illegal.
The school, located 90 minutes north of New York City, countered that the new cheerleading team proved its commitments to women's athletic pursuits.
But US District Judge Stefan R Underhill in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was not persuaded. Performing at pep rallies and on the sidelines of football games does not constitute "genuine varsity athletic participation", he wrote.
"I hold that the University's competitive cheerleading team does not qualify as a varsity sport for the purposes of Title IX, and, therefore, its members may not be counted as athletic participants," Judge Underhill wrote in a 95-page decision.
Because cheerleaders cannot be counted to balance the total, Quinnipiac will need to satisfy Title IX another way, Judge Underhill wrote.
He also blasted Quinnipiac for artificially inflating its number of women runners by requiring they participate in cross-country, indoor and outdoor track, thus counting each athlete three times.
The unedited ruling was posted on the website of the Stamford Advocate.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/worl...-1225895453636
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