Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.

Former UT softball coach files Title IX suit

Courtesy UT Athletics

Tarrah Beyster, Rocket softball coach from Fall 2009 to November 2013.

Emily Johnson and Colleen Anderson

A former University of Toledo softball coach filed a Title IX complaint suit against the university following her forced resignation last November.

Former UT softball coach of five years Tarrah Beyster has listed several complaints according to the suit.

Beyster had extensive experience in athletics before arriving at the university, according to the suit. She won numerous awards while attending Oregon State University, including being named Female Athlete of the Year for four consecutive years. She held a head coach position at the University of Vermont, and assistant coaching positions at two other universities, according to the suit.

“Prior to her termination — and what ultimately led to the retaliation, hostile work environment, discrimination and termination — Coach Beyster repeatedly complained about gender inequity and Title IX violations to her superiors,” according to Amy Zawacki, an attorney from Widman & Franklin, the law firm representing Beyster’s case in an email interview.

Zawacki said Beyster is suing the university for back pay and front pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and for her old job back, along with any attorney’s fees that accompany the case.

According to Zawacki, Beyster desires her job back at UT because “Coach Beyster was devoted to the University and to the student-athletes she coached. She took a struggling program and enthusiastically invested her time, energy and resources to begin to turn it around… ”

Among the complaints, Beyster said that the baseball team was given preferential treatment over the women’s softball team in several instances.

When the time came to update the playing fields, the baseball team had the dirt on their fields replaced and a new bullpen backstop built, while the female softball team received neither of these things despite requests, according to the suit.

In a statement released on Thursday, Oct. 23 by UT via email said, “While we are unable to comment on pending litigation, we can say that The University of Toledo is committed to gender equality for all student-athletes and athletic programs. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not true.”

In response to UT’s statement, Zawacki said, “The University of Toledo has a male-dominated athletic department that hires fewer female coaches, pays lower salaries and awards shorter contracts to those women. [The university] then terminated Coach Beyster for challenging the male-dominated leadership of the athletic department by voicing her objections and advocating for gender equity.”

According to the suit, the male team was allowed to keep the revenue from renting the fields, whereas the female team had to turn over their earnings to Facilities.

The complaints extended to criticize funding and staffing for the teams as well. The male team was allowed to have a full-time graduate assistant while the softball team was allowed to keep their graduate assistants for up to two years.

According to the suit, Beyster had a nepotism rule which favors employment enforced against her by the university after her request to hire a student as a volunteer coach was denied.

When it was time to renovate the field to be incompliance with NCAA requirements, the softball team had to raise almost all the money to do so themselves, which ended up being $103,000 over three years, the suit said.

Beyster said the disparity extended to her personal situation as well. Male coaches received multi-year contracts but Beyster herself was not offered one.

She was also the lowest paid head softball coach in the Mid-American Conference and never received a raise in the five years she worked at UT. Beyster said she gave a copy of the article “Coaches’ salaries show wide gender disparity in MAC” to Kelly Andrews, senior associate athletics director, but was ignored.

A complaint concerning locker rooms was another issue listed in the suit.

“Both the women and male coaches had locker rooms, but the university assigned the referees and umpires to use the women coaches’ locker room,” according to the complaint file. “Male referees and umpires walked in on every female coach, and at least three female coaches were nude when a referee or umpire walked in.”

Beyster said she was not met with an adequate response, according to the suit.

“In response to her complaints, [she] was subjected to overt and subtle retaliation, a hostile work environment, and continued discrimination,” the suit said.

In the suit, she said an investigation was launched against her without her being properly informed, and was represented as a ‘friendly conversation’ by Andrews, and Kevin West, the senior director of faculty relations and inclusion officer.

“Almost immediately upon her start at the university, Coach Beyster recognized the glaring inequalities between the men’s and women’s athletic programs, generally, and the softball and baseball programs, specifically,” the suit said on Beyster’s employment in 2009.

In November of 2013, Beyster attended an unannounced disciplinary hearing. At the end of the hearing, she was found guilty of insubordination. According to the suit, when given the choice to be terminated or resign with 90 days’ pay, she chose to resign.

Print Friendly

Comments