Former UC Berkeley and U.S. Olympic team swimming coach Teri McKeever is preparing to sue the university in the wake of her firing Tuesday.

A formal complaint alleging gender discrimination and bias by the university will be filed with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing on McKeever’s behalf in the coming weeks, according to her attorney, Thomas Newkirk.

McKeever, who led the Golden Bears to four women’s NCAA team titles during her 29-year career, was fired after the university-commissioned, eight-month investigation substantiated reports of bullying and discrimination based on race, disability and national origin, first disclosed by the Southern California News Group in May.

Newkirk said the university failed to consider allegations of gender discrimination and bias the former coach detailed in a formal complaint to the university in November.

McKeever, 61, also is considering a lawsuit against Munger, Tolles & Olson, the law firm hired by the university. Newkirk said the firm, like the university, also failed to consider gender bias as a factor in the allegations against McKeever and did not investigate the behavior of male coaches at Cal.

Current and former Cal swimmers, as well as influential Cal boosters and faculty members, said that the university’s decision to fire McKeever did not go far enough. The swimmers allege that McKeever’s bullying and discrimination were enabled by Athletic Director Jim Knowlton, Senior Associate Athletic Director Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, a longtime friend of McKeever’s, and other university officials who repeatedly dismissed or ignored credible complaints of bullying and abuse.

In a letter to swimmers, Knowlton wrote: “I was disturbed by what I learned in the course of reading through the report’s 482 pages that substantiate far too many allegations of unacceptable behavior. I want to apologize, on behalf of Cal Athletics, to every student-athlete who was subject to this conduct in the past, and I want to thank everyone who had the courage to come forward and share their story with the investigators.”

In response Thursday, Newkirk said: “Why he is apologizing to athletes when he knew how Teri coached the entire time he was there is beyond me. It makes no sense.”

Knowlton has been Cal’s athletic director since May 2018.

After interviewing 147 people and reviewing 1,700 documents, attorneys hired by the university found “by a preponderance of the evidence that Coach McKeever discriminated against certain student-athletes, in certain instances, on the basis of race, national origin and disability” creating a “hostile environment.” The report substantiated Southern California News Group reporting in May that McKeever used the “n-word” in front of swimmers last spring.

The investigation also found that McKeever routinely “used humiliating and belittling language that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to the University’s legitimate business interests.”

There is no financial settlement between McKeever and the university, according to a Cal spokesman. The investigation will cost the school approximately $2 million.

Under California law, litigants are required to obtain a “right to sue” notice from the CDFEH or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before filing a civil lawsuit.

“The campus will be ready to defend a lawsuit in court, should the need arise,” Dan Mogulof, Cal’s assistant vice chancellor said.

A decision on a formal complaint McKeever filed with the university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination in November is likely still months away, according to Newkirk.

Newkirk said that once Cal placed McKeever on paid administrative leave on May 25, the day after the initial report was published, and commissioned an investigation, the coach’s firing became inevitable.

“Once Cal pushed the button, once they said, ‘We will investigate,’ it became a train you can’t turn around,” Newkirk said. “Once you push the investigation button, there’s nothing they can do.”

The McKeever probe was directed by Munger, Tolles & Olson attorneys Hailyn Chen and Lauren Bell.

Chen was one of the first female coxswains for the Yale varsity crew team and was named the program’s MVP in 1996. She is a graduate of UCLA Law School.

Bell joined the firm in March after previously working as senior counsel in the Justice Department’s criminal division. Bell has a BA in economics from Harvard and masters and law degrees from Stanford.

“They were the wrong investigators because they had no sports context,” Newkirk said. “They had no knowledge of how gender influences not only complaints but responses to complaints. And they were personally involved.”

Newkirk said that it was “surprising that our complaint that was critical of the investigative team was sent to the investigative team by the university.”

Newkirk, who has represented fired college coaches in a number of high-profile cases, said he generally discourages clients from suing individual athletes.

The focus, he said, should be on Cal.

“The university should have known better,” Newkirk said. “The adults in the room should have known better.

“A lot of coaches want to go after athletes. I tell them to keep their eyes on the prize, which is the university. If the university had a better protocol, this never would have happened. If they had a better complaint protocol, it would have been caught earlier, and Teri would have learned from her mistakes earlier.”