## Facts

- Female intercollegiate athletes and coaches at Washington State University (WSU) sued WSU and university officials in a class action alleging sex discrimination in athletics.
- Plaintiffs brought claims under the Washington Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD).
- The trial court found unlawful sex discrimination against women’s athletics in areas including funding, scholarships, facilities, equipment, coaching, uniforms, awards, publicity, and administrative support.
- In 1980–81, men’s athletics received substantially more funding than women’s athletics; men’s programs also generated significant revenue while women’s programs generated little.
- The trial court ordered injunctive relief, including minimum percentages of institutional support and scholarship allocation targets for women’s athletics, with a participation-based cap.
- In calculating participation opportunities, scholarship distribution, and allocation of resources, the trial court excluded football and effectively allowed football revenues to be treated as outside the equalization formula.
- The trial court also allowed each sport to benefit from the revenue it generated and required plaintiffs to comply with the state tort claim filing prerequisite (RCW 4.92.110).
- Plaintiffs appealed the exclusion of football, the revenue-retention approach, the reduction of attorney fees, and the tort-claim prerequisite; WSU cross-appealed on fees and costs.

## Issues

1. Whether the Washington ERA and WLAD permit excluding football from calculations comparing men’s and women’s athletic participation opportunities, scholarship allocations, and overall resource distribution.
2. Whether a court may structure athletics funding so that each sport benefits from the revenue it generates, including football, while still complying with the Washington ERA and WLAD.
3. Whether the trial court applied the proper standards in reducing the plaintiffs’ attorney-fee request in a civil-rights class action.
4. Whether RCW 4.92.110 requires a pre-suit claim filing as a condition precedent to these claims against a state university.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s exclusion of football from participation and scholarship calculations.
- The court affirmed the trial court’s allowance of sport-generated revenue retention in principle, subject to the requirement that the overall athletics program comply with the ERA and WLAD.
- The court reversed in part on attorney-fee issues, directing a fee analysis consistent with the enforcement purposes of civil-rights litigation, while affirming other fee and cost determinations and rejecting WSU’s cross-appeal.
- The court affirmed that RCW 4.92.110’s claim-filing requirement applied as a condition precedent to suit against the state university.

## Legal Principles

- The Washington ERA is broadly protective and bars state action that denies or abridges equality of rights on account of sex, including practices that perpetuate unequal treatment in public university athletics.
- Compliance with the ERA and WLAD requires assessing equality across the entire intercollegiate athletics program; revenue-producing status does not justify removing a men’s sport from equity calculations.
- Football must be included when comparing men’s and women’s participation opportunities and scholarship allocations because excluding it distorts the measurement of the benefits and opportunities provided to male athletes.
- A funding model may account for sport-generated revenues, but it is unlawful if it results in, maintains, or masks sex-based inequality in opportunities, scholarships, or treatment in the aggregate.
- In civil-rights enforcement litigation, attorney-fee awards should be evaluated in a manner that supports effective private enforcement of constitutional and statutory equality guarantees.
- Statutory pre-suit claim procedures applicable to suits against the State may apply even when plaintiffs assert constitutional and discrimination claims against a state agency, absent an applicable exemption.

## Conclusion

The Washington Supreme Court held that WSU could not exclude football from athletics equity calculations under the state ERA and WLAD, permitted recognition of sport-generated revenues only if overall treatment remains sex-equal, affirmed the tort-claim prerequisite, and required a corrected approach to attorney fees consistent with civil-rights enforcement.


Blair v. Wash. State Univ., 740 P.2d 1379 (Wash. 1987)