As some colleges merge to better handle a new higher education landscape with fewer students—and thus diminished tuition, dorm and meal plan revenue—along with less federal money for research, greater restrictions on international student visas and more restrictive federal student loan caps, the athletics implications could prove confounding and litigious.
Enter: a new lawsuit brought by two merging schools, Ursuline College and Gannon University, against the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) over the potential exclusion of Ursuline as a member.
When the merger is completed this December, the Ohio-based Ursuline will be renamed Ursuline College Campus of Gannon University. Although it will operate under the Pennsylvania-based Gannon, Ursuline will maintain distinct athletics and academic programs. The colleges, which are located about 95 miles apart, say their merger will create “the largest Catholic system of higher education along Lake Erie.”
Ursuline and Gannon, which play in NCAA Division II, sued the G-MAC on July 1 in an Ohio federal district court. In a complaint drafted by Matthew Duncan and other attorneys from Brennan, Manna & Diamond, the schools accuse the conference of breach of contract and violating Title IX over G-MAC’s possible plan to exclude Ursuline, which has a student body of about 90% women.
