Dear student-athletes, students, and anyone experiencing gender disparities at their colleges/universities,

In the Spring of 2019, Trinity College announced the construction of a new stadium to be built between the Jesse Miller (Men's Lacrosse/Football) and the Robin L. Sheppard (Women’s Field Hockey/ Women’s lacrosse) fields. Those plans included significant upgrades to both of the adjoining facilities. The football stadium would be completely overhauled with new seating and press box. The field hockey stadium was likewise to be improved with live streaming accommodations and over 1,000 person fan capacity. By the summer of 2021, the football stadium upgrade was complete almost identically to the proposed plans. It’s beautiful, and we celebrate this new facility and hope it contributes to the team's success. The Sheppard field hockey stadium, however, was incomplete and untouched well into when the women’s preseason began.

The proposed plan of a stadium capable of holding a total of 1,000 spectators on the sideline of Sheppard field (women's) in preparation for the hosting the NCAA final four and championship, turned out to be an unimpressive set of 5-row metal bleachers that were set up in a matter of days. Regardless of the plans, the end product on the Sheppard side is not the same quality, nor does it provide the same spectator experience as the Miller side (Men's).

On Friday, September 24th,  women athletes at Trinity College gathered to unify and recognize the disparities that women athletes are experiencing. Concluding that meeting, we have decided to create Trin-Wal (Trinity Women’s Athletic League), a coalition of representatives from every women's athletic team at Trinity. We see and live the disparity and ask for your help with creating parity. 

The recent stadium construction left female athletes feeling sub-par and is just a symbol of schoolwide observations regarding gender inequities in sports on Trinity College’s campus. As we are excited for the success of our fellow men athletes and we do not want to take away from what they have, we are just asking for parity. 

The federal Title IX law guarantees that gender should not determine the quality of a student’s athletic experience at our school. We recognize that our school has not achieved equity for women’s sports, and we call on the administration and the athletic department to remedy the situation. We request a full assessment of our school’s compliance with Title IX and a planned and speedy achievement of the law’s requirements for equity by January of 2022. 

The purpose of gathering your signatures is to show our administrative and athletic departments that we will no longer stand idle and will actively hold the college accountable for complying with Title IX. We hope to gather equal amounts of signatures from men and women as this is a movement for all. Please show your support and join us in our fight to stop gender inequity in athletics at Trinity College. We hope we can draw attention to the disparity between women’s and men’s athletics on our campus - and hope it inspires you to make any needed changes on yours.

Above we have attached images of the disparities on campus - to show the significance of inequity we are experiencing.