Judge: Cheerleading Is Not a Sport

Competitive cheerleading is not an official sport that colleges can use to meet gender-equity requirements, a federal judge ruled today in ordering a Connecticut school to keep its women's volleyball team. Volleyball players sued Quinnipiac University after it announced in 2009 it would eliminate the team for budgetary reasons and replace it with a cheer squad. The school contended the squad kept it in compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics. But US District Judge Stefan Underhill disagreed.

"Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX," Underhill wrote. "Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students." (More cheerleading stories.)