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March 6, 2013

Judge rules cheerleading not a sport

By Pat Eaton-Robb Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — A U.S. District Court judge in Connecticut has again ruled that competitive cheerleading, despite some upgrades, is not a sport, and says Quinnipiac University must remain under an injunction that requires the school to keep its women’s volleyball team.

Several volleyball players and their coach successfully sued the university in 2009 after it announced it would eliminate volleyball for budgetary reasons and replace it with a competitive cheer squad.

U.S. District Court Judge Stefan R. Underhill ruled in their favor, saying that competitive cheerleading had not developed enough to be considered a college sport for Title IX purposes, and he ordered the school to keep the volleyball team and come up with a compliance plan.

In his latest ruling Monday, Underhill said that the additions of the cheer team, now called “acrobatics and tumbling,” and a women’s rugby team do not give the university’s female students competitive opportunities equal to those offered to male students and he denied the school’s request to lift his previous injunction.

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