Concordia University Irvine Ordered to Reinstate Women’s Sports Teams

A federal court has handed a major victory to women athletes enrolled at Concordia University Irvine (CUI).

U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter ordered the immediate reinstatement of the women’s swimming and diving and tennis programs after the university eliminated the teams for financial reasons.

Read more about this story from our August 2025 article.

“CUI said it didn’t have money but they said also said they had $15 million to spend on facilities so, they have money,” said Arthur Bryant, the attorney who sued CUI on behalf of the student athletes.

In May, CUI leadership announced it was cutting the women’s sports teams because they could not be supported within their budget and strategic priorities.

In August, the CUI women athletes filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging that cutting the women’s programs violated Title IX.

“To the extent that those teams have already been eliminated, CUI shall immediately reinstate them, and provide the teams with funding, staffing, and all other benefits commensurate with their status as varsity intercollegiate teams,” Judge Slaughter wrote in his Oct. 24 order granting a preliminary injunction.

Title IX is a nationwide law prohibiting gender discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.

University officials declined to comment on how the school will finance the women’s sports teams they previously eliminated.

“Concordia University Irvine will comply with the judge’s ruling while the litigation is in process,” CUI officials told OrangeCountyLawyers.com. “We will not comment on possible resolutions to the case while it is in progress.”

The ruling arrived just in time.

Women’s Sports Programs Just Getting Started for 2025

While the swimming and diving teams missed some early training activities, the aquatics season hasn’t officially started yet and tennis is primarily a Spring sport, according to Bryant.

“The school argued it was already too late and that practice would already have started,” he said. “We said it would’ve been better if it started earlier but it’s not too late and that’s where the judge agreed that it’s not too late and ordered them to reinstate the programs.”

The federal judge’s position doesn’t surprise Bryant who received assistance on the case from the Keller Grover law firm in San Francisco and the Andrews & Thornton law firm in Newport Beach.

“I’ve handled cases like this all over the country,” Bryant told OrangeCountyLawyers.com. “Title IX has been the law for 53 years now. We just won another case in Texas a month ago involving Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches.”

There are three conditions that Bryant is requiring of CUI to settle the case once and for all.

The first is to reinstate the women’s sports programs permanently. The second is to hire a Title IX expert to conduct a full gender equity review of the athletic program and include a compliance plan. The third is to pay the plaintiff’s reasonable costs and attorney’s fees.

“One thing that’s striking is CUI’s own athletic director testified under oath in her deposition that she thought they were close to compliance anyway and she thought the fair and right thing to do was to cut the men’s and women’s teams at the same time,” Bryant added. “But that’s just wrong. When you’re not in compliance, equal cuts to the men and women’s programs just makes more women the victim of the discrimination because you’re eliminating their chances to play.”

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