Long-distance runner Evie Parts sued the NCAA and Swarthmore College as well as members of its athletic department on the grounds they illegally removed her from the track team because she is a transgender athlete.
Parts’ lawsuit said the NCAA’s ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports did not have legal grounds because it’s not a governmental organization and therefore does not have jurisdiction over Pennsylvania state law or the Title IX federal statute.
She was removed from the team on Feb. 6, the day the NCAA issued its new policy on transgender athletes.
Swarthmore men’s and women’s track coach Peter Carroll, athletic director Brad Koch and athletics officials Christina Epps-Chiazor and Valerie Gomez also were named in the lawsuit. According to the complaint, they sent Parts into “such a depressive state that she engaged in self-harm and in one moment told a friend that she wanted to kill herself.”
“We stand by the allegations in the complaint,” said Susie Cirilli, an attorney who, along with the law firm Spector, Gadon, Rosen and Vinci, represent Parts. “As stated in the complaint, the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy. Swarthmore College chose to follow that policy and disregard federal and state law.”
Swarthmore did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NCAA chose not to comment.
The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
Pennsylvania’s state Senate approved a bill by a 32-18 margin on May 6 to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports at the collegiate and K-12 levels. But the state’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives isn’t expected to vote on the bill.
Parts joined the Swarthmore track team in the fall 2020 before then taking off the following four winter and spring seasons. She went back to the Division III team in 2023 to compete in the indoor and outdoor track seasons and in cross country.
When the NCAA issued its ban, the lawsuit states, Parts was told by Epps-Chiazor and Gomez that she could compete with the men’s team or as an unattached athlete. She would only receive medical treatment, the complaint says, if she competed on the men’s team.
Also, according to the lawsuit, Carroll and his staff were not allowed to coach Parts, she could not travel with the team, was not allowed to receive per diem or food and had to pay her way into meets. Parts also couldn’t wear a Swarthmore uniform.
Swarthmore “fully reinstated” Parts on April 11, the lawsuit says, and she competed on the women’s team until graduating in May. Parts won the 10,000 meters in April at the Bill Butler Invitational.
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