A former student alleges that Baylor University denied her a chance to try out for its women's tennis team in retaliation for her role in a Title IX investigation that preceded the departure of the men's tennis head coach last year, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The lawsuit states that plaintiff Julia Bonnewitz, who at one time was a nationally ranked tennis player, came to Baylor in 2017 with the hope of playing on the women's tennis team, but was not given a spot and was instead encouraged to play club tennis. In April 2020, after having met men's tennis head coach Brian Boland at a practice, she asked him for help with joining the women's team.
Boland responded by asking her to meet up with him at a time and place she felt was inappropriate, she said, including suggesting once to meet him at a bar past midnight and "to not tell anyone about it." When she didn't respond, the lawsuit states, he "bombarded her" with a dozen consecutive messages asking to meet up.
According to the lawsuit, Baylor officials reached out to Bonnewitz on July 16, 2020 asking for her cooperation with an investigation into "a student who received inappropriate text messages from a staff member."
Bonnewitz told Baylor Title IX investigators at the time that she was "nervous about participating in a Title IX investigation because Ms. Bonnewitz wanted to play tennis and didn't want to have a target on her back," the lawsuit states. After being reassured there would not be retaliation, the lawsuit states, she turned over the text messages. On July 29, 2020, Boland announced his resignation.
About a month later, Bonnewitz met with two senior athletic department officials and asked to try out for the women's team, but she was told there was no spot for her, according to the lawsuit. It states that school officials told her there was a limit to the number of walk-ons they could take, they had an imbalance of men's and women's athletes, and that they couldn't add any more players due to COVID-19.
But the women's tennis team added two more walk-ons later that month, the lawsuit states. A Baylor official said in an email to ESPN that the two athletes the lawsuit refers to as walk-ons were instead "top-rated recruits and signed full aid agreements."
In an interview with ESPN, Bonnewitz said no one told her in 2020 when she asked to try out for the team that she couldn't be on the team because of her ability.
"It was the fact that there wasn't even an opportunity to try out, or be evaluated or be considered," she said. "That was the issue."
Baylor officials declined to comment Wednesday when asked about the investigation into Boland or the lawsuit.
Women's tennis coach Joey Scrivano, who is not named in the lawsuit, did not respond to an email request for comment.
On Aug. 21, 2020, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported on the allegations of inappropriate texts leading to Boland's departure, and according to the article, Boland did not respond to requests for comment.
The newspaper quoted Baylor President Linda Livingstone as saying, "I can't speak to that. It's a personnel issue. He resigned, and we wish him all the best."
ESPN reached out to Boland for a response Wednesday and has not yet received any comment.