From today's Cornell Daily Sun
 
Hamilton, NY (AP) ---  Colgate University will appeal a federal judge's ruling
that the school must elevate its women's ice hockey team from a club sport to
a varsity sport by the 1993-94 season, officials said yesterday.
	The school filed notice of its intention to appeal the decision yester-
day in U.S. District court in Utica, Colgate spokesman James Leach said.
	In response to a lawsuit brought by several female hockey players,
U.S. Magistrate Judge David N.Hurd ruled last month that Colgate was obligated
under federal anti-discrimination law to grant the women's team varsity status.
	Hurd said there was too great a disparity between the women's club
hockey team and the men's varsity hockey team.  The women had a budget of $4600
in 1990-91, while the men had a budget of $238,560, he noted.
	Hurd cited Title IX of the Federal Education Amendments of 1972 as the
guiding law in his decision.  The law states that schools receiving federal aid
must provide "equal athletic opportunities for both sexes."
	Colgate president Neil Grabois said Tuesday that Hurd misinterpreted
the law.
	"We have always understood Title IX as requiring that the athletic pro-
gram as a whole provide comparable opportunity to men and women, not that
men's and women's programs had to be identical in each particular sport,"
Grabois said in a news release.
	"If the judge's unprecedented decision stands, it could be the basis\
for damaging changes in athletic programs, not just at Colgate, but at colleges
and schools nationwide," he said.
 
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Lisa Sweeney
CWRU '88, Cornell '93?