Report: Marshall University athletics files lawsuit against Conference USA

Marshall University is suing the Conference USA following a public and ugly departure from the C-USA, according to a report from Grant Traylor of the Herald Dispatch. The Thundering Herd are set to leave the conference for the Sun Belt ahead of the 2022-23 academic year, but C-USA has proceeded with its demand for arbitration, delaying Marshall’s impending move.

In the lawsuit, Marshall University’s Board of Governors are reportedly “seeking relief in the form of a declaratory judgment and temporary, preliminary and permanent injunctions against Conference USA in proceeding with arbitration.” Marshall officially filed the lawsuit on Tuesday morning, and the university is seeking to establish jurisdiction in West Virginia. Ultimately, the Thundering Herd’s goal is to counter C-USA’s arbitration demand; the university received C-USA’s arbitration case from the American Arbitration Association on Thursday, per the Herald Dispatch.

Marshall states in its lawsuit that as an “arm of the state of West Virginia,” the university is entitled to sovereign immunity, per the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which would render the university inherently immune from C-USA’s arbitration demand.

As part of its case, Marshall brought up the league’s current bylaws and compared those to what the university was told when it first joined the conference. Then-Marshall University president Dan Angel signed the new member agreement in Oct. 2003, and the school first joined C-USA for athletic competition in July of 2005; however, “a copy of the Bylaws that existed at the time was not attached to the New Member Agreement,” the suit says. Marshall ultimately concludes in the lawsuit that “the current Bylaws are obviously different than the Bylaws that existed in 2003.”

In other words, when Marshall first agreed to join C-USA back in 2003, there was no agreement or law in place that prevented the university from departing, assessed punishment for such action and/or required that the Thundering Herd provide any notice to the conference. Now, however, such a clause does exist, prompting C-USA’s arbitration case against the university.

Marshall’s lawsuit states that the Thundering Herd will “suffer actual, imminent, immediate and irreparable harm in the absence of primary relief, and the balance of hardships weighs in the Plantiff’s favor.” Marshall believes that it is in the best interests of both the public and the other universities involved to let the Thundering Herd make their move as originally planned, allowing them to schedule Sun Belt athletic events beginning in 2022-23.

Marshall is one of several C-USA schools to announce its departure in favor of the Sun Belt Conference. Three other school — Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss — are following suit, after all three received and accepted invitations in October. Marshall provided the C-USA with its notice of departure on Nov. 1.