Appeals court affirms previous ruling that UK did not violate Title IX
The sixth circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed the ruling of a district court judge who found in favor of the University of Kentucky in a lawsuit alleging the school had violated Title IX by not offering other opportunities for women to participate in sports.
UK student Elizabeth Niblock, a former varsity lacrosse player at Furman who gave up the sport after transferring to Kentucky, filed a class-action lawsuit against the university in 2019, alleging the university needed to field women’s varsity equestrian, field hockey and lacrosse teams to comply with Title IX. The district court ruled in October 2024, more than a year after a three-day trial that featured testimony from nine witnesses, that Niblock had failed to show there were enough UK students with sufficient interest and skill to field varsity teams in those sports.
Niblock argued in her appeal, which the appellate court heard in December, that the district court had erred in ruling UK could not find enough female students interested and capable of competing at a varsity level in those sports. She also argued the district court had incorrectly excluded an expert witness during the original trial who could have provided testimony that undermined the methodology of UK’s student survey designed to gauge interest in adding additional varsity sports.
The Court of Appeals ruled in UK’s favor on both matters.
“Equal sports opportunities are an essential and valuable component of higher education. And the University has taken significant steps to ensure that it meets that standard, as shown by the addition of several women’s club and varsity sports teams over the last 29 years,” chief judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the ruling. “But Title IX does not require schools to manufacture interest in a team or field teams unable to compete at a meaningful level. The claimants have not shown that such an unmet demand exists, at least not on this record. It is not the role of the federal courts to make a university create varsity teams when the evidence fails to show that its student body currently can fill their ranks.”
This story could be updated.
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 3:02 PM.