The movement has also joined a call by Sonoma State educators for the California Faculty Association, the union representing its teachers and coaches, to request an injunction to temporarily block the university from carrying out the cuts.
Ziemer said the group’s goal is to “stop any further action on all the cuts across campus until meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders can occur — something that we do not believe has happened.”
Save Seawolves Athletics is also prepared to file a second complaint with the Department of Education on behalf of faculty of color, he said and is looking at the possibility of a class-action lawsuit.
Ziemer said he was waiting until a town hall meeting on Thursday to explore these options further, as the academic departments also face cuts.
Until then, the group will be focused on advocating against the cuts at the CSU Board of Trustees meeting, which runs Monday through Wednesday in Long Beach.
“We decided to have a massive movement through every sport to get any Southern California alumni to show up in person. We have some athletic faculty members who are planning on going down,” Ziemer said.
Athletes, staff and alumni are also registering to speak via Zoom beginning Tuesday.
“We’ve got a lot of alumni, we’ve got a lot of people, we’re going to fight,” said Marcus Ziemer, who has coached men’s soccer at Sonoma State since 1989. “At the very least, we want transparency — how they arrived at this decision, when did they arrive at this decision? But we want to fight to keep athletics because I don’t think it makes sense for the university to do that.”