Thomas v. The Regents of the University of California

Background

Renee Thomas sued The Regents of the University of California, Jim Knowlton, and Neil McGuire after McGuire released her from the University of California, Berkeley women’s soccer team on April 29, 2019. Thomas alleged that she and four other women were released while one male player was released from the men’s soccer team. She alleged that she had performed well and understood there to be an implicit promise that she would remain on the team if she met performance expectations.

The court had previously dismissed Thomas’s claims under Title IX, the California Unruh Act, and negligence, but allowed her to amend. Thomas then filed a first amended complaint asserting those claims and adding a breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim against McGuire. The amended complaint pursued three Title IX theories: unequal treatment, a sex-based hostile environment and the university’s deliberate indifference to it, and denial of effective athletic participation opportunities.

Judicial Notice

The court denied Thomas’s request to take judicial notice of three news articles about the “Varsity Blues” college-admissions scandal. The court found that the amended complaint did not concretely allege that McGuire or anyone at Cal was involved in that scandal, and that articles about coaches at other universities were not appropriate for evaluating the sufficiency of her allegations against these defendants.

The court granted Thomas’s requests for judicial notice of printouts concerning Cal’s sports clubs and Pac-12 Conference schools and sports. It also granted defendants’ requests for judicial notice of Cal women’s soccer schedules and records, team rosters and statistics, and sports listings.

Legal Standard

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. The court had to accept well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draw reasonable inferences for Thomas, but it did not have to accept conclusory statements or unreasonable inferences. The court also considered whether any deficiency could be corrected by another amendment.

Title IX Unequal Treatment

The court held that Thomas had not alleged specific facts showing that similarly situated male players received more favorable treatment. Comparing the number of women released from the larger women’s team with the number of men released from the smaller men’s team did not establish discriminatory intent. The new allegations that Thomas started in several games also did not show that she was treated differently because of her sex.

The court likewise found conclusory Thomas’s allegations that at least two unqualified women were placed on the women’s team and that the university would not have tolerated similar conduct on the men’s team. The court stated that, even if those allegations were true, Thomas had not explained why they amounted to a Title IX violation.

Hostile Environment and Deliberate Indifference

The court held that the amended complaint did not adequately allege that McGuire created a hostile environment based on sex. Allegations that McGuire yelled at, insulted, singled out, and psychologically tormented players could describe demeaning or abusive behavior, but the court found that most of those allegations did not show harassment because of sex.

The court also found insufficient the allegations that McGuire used gender-based insults, commented on a player’s physique, and made inappropriate comments about players’ bodies and hickeys. The complaint did not provide enough detail about what McGuire said, the context, or the frequency of the comments to show sex-specific language aimed at humiliating, ridiculing, or intimidating the players. Because the court found that Thomas had not adequately alleged a hostile environment, it did not reach defendants’ other arguments concerning notice, university responsibility, or whether the alleged conduct denied an educational benefit or opportunity.

Effective Athletic Accommodation

The court explained that an effective-accommodation claim concerns whether students have an opportunity to participate in athletics, while an equal-treatment claim concerns differences in matters such as schedules, equipment, or coaching. Thomas alleged a university-wide gap between male and female athletic participation and argued that she had been denied an opportunity to play because she was released from the women’s soccer team.

The court held that Thomas had not connected her release to the alleged system-wide participation gap. She had played on the women’s soccer team, and the complaint alleged that she and four other women were replaced by women. The court also noted that the women’s team was larger than the men’s team, that its size had fluctuated slightly, and that the complaint attributed the reduction in team size to McGuire’s coaching decision about which players he wanted. The court therefore concluded that Thomas had not stated a Title IX effective-accommodation claim.

State-Law Claims and Leave to Amend

The court held that Thomas’s Unruh Act and negligence claims were based on the same gender-discrimination allegations underlying her Title IX claim and failed for the same reasons. The court also held that her breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim against McGuire was deficient. The provided opinion text truncates the court’s fuller discussion of that claim.

The court determined that further amendment would be futile. Thomas had already amended once, had not supplied specific facts supporting her gender-discrimination claims, and had not identified additional facts she would allege. The court therefore granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the first amended complaint without leave to amend.