Neal

The instant case requires us to consider whether Title IX prevents a university in which male students occupy a disproportionately high percentage of athletic roster spots from making gender-conscious decisions to reduce the proportion of roster spots assigned to men. We hold that Title IX does not bar such remedial actions.

The Board of Trustees of the California State Universities and other defendants appeal from the district court’s order granting the motion of Neal and other plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction. Neal’s suit alleged that the decision of California State University, Bakersfield (“CSUB”) to reduce the number of spots on its men’s wrestling team, undertaken as part of a university-wide program to achieve “substantial proportionality” between each gender’s participation in varsity sports and its composition in the campus’s student body, violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The district court determined that regulations promulgated pursuant to Title IX, and CSUB’s program, which was modeled after those regulations, violated Title IX. The district court declined to reach the merits of the constitutional challenge,…