Brown University has agreed to pay $1.13 million in attorney’s fees and $40,000 in litigation expenses to the plaintiffs of Cohen v. Brown University following a court order last Tuesday.
A group of students on women's athletic teams filed a motion against Brown in 2020 after the university demoted multiple women’s varsity teams to club teams, according to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island. This motion was filed by the original plaintiffs of Cohen v. Brown, who reopened legal proceedings as an extension of their 1992 lawsuit that found Brown had denied equal athletic opportunities to women athletes guaranteed under Title IX.
The group alleged that the university broke the equal opportunity agreement it committed to in the 1998 resolution of the Cohen v. Brown case, but the case was settled out of court, according to Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark.
“Regardless of what the plaintiff may have alleged, we did not violate the joint agreement or Title IX — and no court ever found that we did,” Clark wrote in an email to The Brown Daily Herald.
The settlement for the 2020 motion was approved in December of that year, the Daily Herald reported. Brown agreed to reinstate the women’s varsity equestrian and fencing teams — and to not eliminate or reduce the status of any women’s varsity team or add any men’s team without also adding a comparable women’s team for at least the next four years.
As part of the settlement, Brown also agreed to pay the fees and costs for the attorneys representing the women student-athletes, according to the ACLU press release.
The plaintiffs and Brown University participated in mediation sessions conducted by Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan of the U.S. District Court on Sept. 14 and Oct. 25 in order to determine the amount the school would pay. U.S. District Court Chief Judge John McConnell approved the resolution of these sessions last Tuesday, the Daily Herald reported.
“Countless women locally and nationally have benefitted from the efforts of women at Brown who have championed this case over three decades through to its current conclusion,” Lynette Labinger, class counsel and cooperating attorney from the ACLU of Rhode Island, said in their press release.
“We hope this substantial award … will send a message to all colleges and universities in Rhode Island and elsewhere to carefully examine their athletic programs, renew their commitment to ensure their women athletes are being treated fairly and equitably and to recognize that decisions to cut programs to save money may prove more costly than the projected savings themselves,” Labinger continued.
Although Brown’s 1998 agreement is set to expire on Aug. 31, 2024, Title IX still requires that the university provide equal athletic opportunities across genders.
“The order to pay attorneys’ fees does not constitute any court decision regarding the substance of the 2020 legal claims by the plaintiffs in Cohen v. Brown,” Clark wrote to the Daily Herald. “Brown has at no time since the original decision in Cohen v. Brown more than 25 years ago been found in violation of Title IX. Instead, Brown has remained committed to providing equal athletic opportunities for women and men.”
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