For members of the swim team, who have fought to restore Tribe swimming for men and women \u2013 under the banner of \u201cone family, one fight\u201d<\/a> \u2013 Monday\u2019s announcement was less a salvation than a source of survivor\u2019s guilt.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely really hard,\u201d junior Rebecca Rogers<\/strong> told Swimming World. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to be happy considering just how close we are to the men\u2019s team and that a lot of our decisions were trying to save both teams. So we want to be happy but it\u2019s pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s definitely a divide in emotions, but because we are so close, a lot of the guys were really happy for us just because this means that Tribe swimming in general isn\u2019t going to cease to exist,\u201d senior Tara Tiernan<\/strong> said. \u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s hard to watch your best friends get something that you worked equally as hard for. And we\u2019re not separate teams. We are one tribe, one team.\u201d<\/p>\n William & Mary’s fight to reinstate swimming has been under the “one tribe” banner, which makes Monday’s restoration of just the women’s team less joyous than uncomfortable; Photo Courtesy: William & Mary Athletics<\/p><\/div>\n The decision fits with the tone-deafness that William & Mary swimmers have gotten used to from the administration. While their efforts to restore swimming have been gender-neutral<\/a>, aiming for restore that \u201cone tribe\u201d that exists in practice, the college\u2019s decision-making is anything but.<\/p>\n There was little obfuscating that in a statement, which ascribes the change of heart to when, \u201cthe university received notice of intent to sue on the grounds that the announced plan, including the cuts and the associated roster adjustments in other sports, would not fully meet Title IX standards.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first misstep by the administration. It admitted plagiarizing large portions of the initial letter to the community<\/a> from one Stanford used to announce program cuts in the summer. Director of Athletics Samantha Huge<\/strong> resigned earlier this month<\/a>. Monday\u2019s announcement cites little reasoning save for the desire to stave off lawsuits, the monetary savings from which can then ensure gender equity, though only indirectly and when forced to.<\/p>\n “Achieving gender equity for the department has been an important goal throughout this process \u2013 one of the three critical challenges we aimed to address,” president Katherine A. Rowe<\/strong> said in the statement<\/a>. “We appreciate the question was pressed, and it prompted us to dig deeper and determine if the previous plan went far enough or fast enough. This is an opportunity for us to do something decisive, consistent with our values, and I commend Interim Director (Jeremy<\/strong>) Martin<\/strong> for working toward a swift resolution under very difficult circumstances.”<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed by swimmers, who don\u2019t see this as either swift or a resolution.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the meeting, nobody felt truly happy for just getting the women\u2019s team reinstated because it\u2019s not Tribe swimming without both the women\u2019s and the men\u2019s team,\u201d senior Gabby Zhang<\/strong> said. \u201cSo I feel like there\u2019s hope and we\u2019re still going to fight. \u2026 It\u2019s kind of upsetting because it feels like they just reinstated us so they could make the numbers and they only care about the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n Tiernan put it differently, referring to an assistant coach saying, \u201cit\u2019s like having half of your children get rewarded for something that all of your children worked for.\u201d In rends in two the solidarity that has been the cornerstone of the Save Tribe movement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely weird because it\u2019s like a family being torn apart essentially, with the men no longer being able to swim with the women,\u201d said Grace Olsen,<\/strong> a sophomore no longer on the team who wrote an essay that appeared<\/a> on Swimming World<\/em> about what the team has meant to her. \u201cFrom that aspect, it\u2019s a huge loss. \u2026 I think that most people are just as angry now as they were before, so they\u2019re going to continue doing what they were doing to bring the men\u2019s team back.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the reinstatement puts William & Mary in a precarious position. They\u2019ve ceded leverage to the women\u2019s team, which knows that the university needs it to make its participation numbers work. But operationally, Tiernan said, the cost of sponsoring a women\u2019s team is roughly equal to the cost of a co-ed team. But then the Title IX numbers come into play if men\u2019s swimming is reinstated. (The obvious stumbling block for Title IX is, as ever, football: The Tribe have 101 athletes on the roster for a program whose last winning season was 2015.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Big announcement! Thanks to a lot of hard work and support, the women\u2019s swim team has been reinstated. This is absolutely something that should be celebrated, but at the same time, we need to continue to fight for the men\u2019s team. Keep putting pressure on the administration. Keep spreading the word. Keep fighting until the job is done. #savetribeswimming #savethetribe7<\/a><\/p>\n A post shared by Save Tribe Swimming<\/a> (@savetribeswimming) on ![\"William-Mary-Swimming2\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WMSwimmingTwo.jpg\")
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