Female Athletes File Appeal Against House Settlement, Claiming It Violates Title IX

Eight female athletes filed an appeal against the landmark settlement in the House v. NCAA case on Wednesday, as first reported by Front Office Sports.

The group of soccer, volleyball and track athletes argues that women will not receive their fair share of the $2.8 billion in backpay damages that will be paid to former student-athletes who were unable to make money based on their name, image and likeness (NIL) since 2016.

Judge Claudia Wilken granted final approval to the settlement last week, meaning beginning next season, schools will be able to pay athletes directly under the new revenue-sharing cap, ending the NCAA’s amateurism model.

Filing the lawsuit were Vanderbilt track athlete Kacie Breeding, Virginia volleyball player Kate Johnson, and six athletes from the College of Charleston: soccer players Lexi Drumm, Emmie Wannemacher, Riley Haas, Savannah Baron and Elizabeth Arnold, and volleyball player Emma Appelman.

The athletes have grounds to appeal the settlement because they had previously filed objections to the proposed settlement.

“We support a settlement of the case, but not an inaccurate one that violates federal law,” said Ashlyn Hare, one of the attorneys representing the athletes, according to Front Office Sports.

Approximately 90% of the $2.8 billion in backpay is expected to be paid to male football and basketball student-athletes, reflecting the increased commercial earnings men’s teams make compared to their female counterparts.

However, the group of athletes appealing argue that if schools had to pay these damages directly to their athletes, there would have to be an equitable share between male and female athletes to comply with Title IX laws.

“The calculation of past damages is based on an error that ignores Title IX and deprives female athletes of $1.1 billion,” Hare said. “Paying out the money as proposed would be a massive error that would cause irreparable harm to women’s sports.”

The lead attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a statement that this appeal will delay payments to “hundreds of thousands of athletes” by a “minimum of several months to potentially a year or more.”

“These attorneys are pursuing an appeal based on a Title IX issue that Judge Wilken already disposed of correctly, quickly and multiple times,” the statement said.

“Judge Wilken noted that these attorneys cited ‘no authority that Title IX applies to damages awards distributions or that damages distributions made by a claims administrator are subject to Title IX.’”

The appeal was filed by the law firm Hutchinson Black and Cook of Boulder, Colorado.

“This is a football and basketball damages settlement with no real benefit to female athletes,” Hare said. “Congress has expressly rejected efforts to exempt revenue-generating sports like football and basketball from Title IX’s antidiscrimination mandate. The NCAA agreed with us. Our argument on appeal is the exact same argument the conferences and NCAA made prior to settling the case.”