Seven student athletes have sued Sonoma State University and top college administrators over a controversial plan to end all intercollegiate sports under a proposed package of $24 million in budget cuts that have rocked the Rohnert Park campus this year.

The 53-page lawsuit, filed Friday in Sonoma County Superior Court, was brought by the plaintiffs on behalf of all SSU students and student athletes.

The complaint alleges administrators knew how drastic the cuts would be well before the Jan. 22 announcement, after the spring semester started, and deprived students of crucial information that could have affected their enrollment decisions, amounting to “fraudulent conduct.”

“Defendants knew that student athletes were giving up numerous opportunities to play college sports at other universities,” the lawsuit states. “Yet despite knowing all that, Defendants still went out and continued recruiting Plaintiffs and other student athletes to Sonoma State without ever disclosing that they were about to eliminate all athletics.”

The lawsuit names SSU’s Interim President Emily Cutrer and California State University Chancellor Mildred García, accusing them of violating procedural requirements for program discontinuation.

The group is not seeking damages but rather for a judge to stop SSU from “unlawfully cutting athletics and numerous academic programs, severely damaging the college careers of countless Sonoma State students.”

Six of the seven student ath letes named as plaintiffs were recruited to SSU for the fall semester of 2024 or the spring semester this year. They are being represented pro bono by the San Francisco-based Joseph Saveri Law Firm.

Plaintiff Abbey Healy, a member of the women’s soccer team, transferred to SSU this semester because it offered a concentration in pre-law and philosophy.

But the sweeping cuts erased both her sport and that academic path.

“I felt that my voice might help make a difference, and hopefully make the right kind of impact, so this doesn’t happen to other students,” Healy told The Press Democrat Monday.

Spokespeople for SSU and CSU said they were aware of the lawsuit and were reviewing it. They did not offer additional comment.

History of dispute

The lawsuit is the latest development in a standoff between the SSU administration, on the one side, and faculty, staff, students, alumni and their allies, who’ve waged an opposition campaign to the cuts that spanned from CSU’s Long Beach headquarters to Sacramento, with near-weekly rallies on the Rohnert Park campus.

Sonoma State’s financial crisis is among the most dire of several CSU campuses in Northern California that have seen dramatic drops in enrollment over the past decade along with rising costs that have opened up massive budget gaps.

To close its deficit, SSU administrators, led by Cutrer, ordered an unprecedented slate of cuts that would eliminate more than 100 faculty, lecturer, coaching and staff positions, six academic departments and two dozen degree programs.

All of SSU’s 11 athletic programs, with an annual roster of 195 to 235 students, would also be dropped at the end of this school year. Athletic scholarships will be honored for students who want to stay if they continue to meet academic requirements, but many have scrambled to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal in an effort to find opportunities at other universities.

In a Jan. 31 interview with The Press Democrat, Cutrer said decisions were still in flux until the eleventh hour and depended also on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget. That proposal, released in early January, included an 8% funding reduction for the CSU system and accounts for roughly a quarter of SSU’s projected deficit. Cutrer’s Jan. 22 announcement was then delayed until the athletic director returned from NCAA meetings, she said.

Emiria Salzmann, head coach of SSU’s women’s soccer team, expressed skepticism at Sonoma State’s claim it did not have prior knowledge that the cuts were coming.

If the administration knew it intended to cut athletics, “then essentially, we were recruiting student athletes to a university that doesn’t have a future for them,” said Salzmann, an SSU grad in her 14th year as women’s soccer coach. “It’s unethical to do that.”

A first-year student from Fremont, Healy played soccer at CSU Monterey Bay in the fall, then made the decision to transfer to SSU because it offered her desired philosophy course track.

The pre-law part of it “definitely sparked my interest more,” said Healy, who decided to “really push” for admission to Sonoma State.

Salzmann, the soccer coach, “was willing to give me a chance,” she said. “I was so excited to be coached by her.”

News of the cuts came down on her second day of classes. “I hadn’t even met the team,” said Healy.

“Having all this ripped out from under me was scary. Now I have to find somewhere new. I’m kind of lost in the whole process.”

Cutrer’s decision will force Healy “to transfer for the second time in her first year of college,” the complaint states, “because both of her passions were extinguished.”

Another plaintiff, Vincent Lencioni, a graduate of Santa Rosa High School, played baseball at Napa Junior College last spring. After that season, he was recruited by several colleges.

Lencioni chose the Seawolves for his single remaining season of eligibility because he’d grown up in Santa Rosa and attended Sonoma State games “since he was a child,” according to the complaint. “He knew of Sonoma State’s strong reputation in baseball,” but had the Seawolves not recruited him, “he would have attended another school.”

Lencioni is not sure what to do next, the lawsuit claims — “transfer, again, to another school to play his final year of baseball, but give up amazing connections and academic opportunities at Sonoma State” or “abandon his athletic career to stay at Sonoma State.”

36 coaches, staff at risk

Thirty-six coaches and staff are being laid off as part of the athletics cuts. They are not party to the lawsuit, but head men’s soccer coach Marcus Ziemer said they share concerns about a lack of transparency and engagement with the athletics department. He cast doubt on SSU’s estimated $3.7 million in savings from discontinuing sports.

The lawsuit also calls into question SSU’s calculation of savings, calling the cuts unlawful because they rely on data contradicted by independent financial analysis and SSU’s own financial information submitted to the Department of Education.

The complaint notes Cutrer has made conflicting statements on savings and claimed instead that two independent analyses found athletics “is either a net financial positive to the University, or roughly financially neutral” when accounting for revenues generated by the department and anticipated loss in enrollment.

Ziemer acknowledged that in the fall the administration signaled cutbacks to come and they were prepared for that, but athletics was still given the go-ahead to recruit. They also hired an athletics trainer and put up brand new scoreboards.

“There was certainly no indication” all sports would be eliminated, Ziemer said. “It was just such a big move.”

Amid the outrage on campus and beyond over the cuts, student, faculty and staff representatives have also worried they could spur more dramatic drops in enrollment that would imperil the 65-year-old university’s future.

Top California lawmakers have demanded a detailed turnaround plan from administrators during a legislative forum held on campus last month.

SSU athletes, coaches and alumni, meanwhile, have carried on with their “Save Seawolves Athletics” campaign, and have filed two federal civil rights complaints.

In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, the group called for an investigation into proposed cuts they said disproportionately affect minority and underrepresented students. They also argue the cuts were made without due process or input from those affected.

At SSU forums and in front of the CSU Board of Trustees, members of the Seawolves community have testified to the transformative impact of the sports programs on their lives and what the university and particularly students with limited pathways to higher education stand to lose.

5,700 sign petition

A petition to “Save Seawolves Sports” has garnered more than 5,700 signatures. High profile alumni have also spoken out, including NBA star Jaylen Wells, who visited the campus in February and donned custom shoes with SSU’s logo during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

Although SSU’s budget cuts have been the most visible and extreme so far, a number of CSU campuses are contending with growing deficits. On Thursday, San Francisco State University announced it would cut three of its 13 athletics teams — baseball, men’s soccer and women’s indoor track and field. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Friday announced the immediate end to the men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs.

You can reach Staff Writer Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.