In what was then-termed as a cost-cutting measure, the Eastern Michigan softball team played its final season in 2018.
Now, a federal judge has ordered that a softball coach should be hired by April 1st and that the program is to be reinstated by the fall of 2019.
Judge George Caram Steeh, on the bench of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan, issued the order on Tuesday as part of an ongoing legal battle that began when EMU announced plans to eliminate four sports at the end of the 2017-18 school year; those sports included softball; men’s swimming and diving; wrestling; and women’s tennis.
A lawsuit was later brought against the university by a female tennis player and a softball player, alleging Title IX violations. A number of individual legal battles have arisen inside that original litigation.
A previous court decision determined that the university was in violation of Title IX and ordered that both eliminated women’s programs be brought back. The women’s tennis team was reinstated in November, and will compete during the 2019-20 season.
Steeh’s decision on Tuesday stemmed from an EMU argument that softball would be prohibitively expensive and that the university should instead be allowed to introduce a women’s lacrosse team to satisfy Title IX requirements.
Financial discussions are at the center of the newest softball/lacrosse argument from the school; EMU officials have noted the difference in non-scholarship athletes that would be on a lacrosse roster (roughly 33-36) versus the number of non-scholarship softball players (roughly 5-8) and the difference between the two in revenue enjoyed by the university.
Tuesday’s court decision dismissed that argument; citing “irreparable harm” from the elimination of the softball and women’s tennis teams, Judge Steeh ordered that the softball team’s reinstatement is the “appropriate remedy.”
Included in Steeh’s order were the requirements that EMU hire a softball coach by April 1st of this year; restore the full scholarships and budget that were enjoyed by the program at the time of its elimination; and field a complete team for the 2019-20 season, including making necessary repairs to facilities and a fall game schedule.
Information from the Detroit Free Press was used in this report
