The Ivy League canceled all fall athletic competition, according to an announcement released Wednesday afternoon. Winter sports will not begin until after Jan. 1. 

Amy Cohen ’92 and a group of 12 other plaintiffs — all female athletes who collectively sued the University in 1998 for violating Title IX legislation protecting gender equity in athletics — are challenging the University in court for allegedly violating the terms of the original settlement.

When athletes from the women’s track, field and cross country teams found out that their counterparts on the men’s teams had been demoted to the club level May 28, their first reaction wasn’t relief that they had been spared.

A coalition of University student-athletes from teams recently demoted from varsity to club level have retained attorney Jeffrey Kessler of Chicago-based law firm Winston & Strawn in hopes of demanding reinstatement to the varsity roster. 

After the University announced last month that it would transition 11 varsity sports teams to club status and promote club co-ed sailing and women’s sailing to varsity, an outpouring of support flooded in for the demoted teams.

Two weeks after losing their varsity status, over 100 former student-athletes now face a once-unfathomable choice: stay at Brown or continue their athletic careers at a different institution.

On Tuesday evening, President Christina Paxson  P’19 released a statement reversing a May 28 decision to eliminate the Men’s Track and Field and Cross Country teams as part of the University’s Excellence in Brown Athletics Initiative, which demoted 11 varsity teams to club status.

The men’s track, field and cross country teams have been reinstated to the varsity roster, a reversal of their recent demotion to the club level

President Christina Paxson P’19 addressed circulating concerns regarding the recent demotion of 11 varsity teams to club status in a community-wide email Saturday, offering greater detail about how the decision was made and the motivation behind it. 

In response to the University’s recent announcement that 11 varsity teams would be demoted to the club level as part of a new Excellence in Brown Athletics initiative, student athletes have mobilized to organize their teammates, peers, parents and alumni networks to petition for more answers.