Sonoma State’s Deep Cuts Are Paused by Judge, Leaving Students and Faculty in Limbo

A judge has ordered Sonoma State University to halt — for now — its plan to suspend more than 20 academic programs and departments at the end of the year to cure a massive budget deficit.

The temporary restraining order issued Tuesday in Sonoma County Superior Court forces university leaders to pause the effort after student-athletes filed a petition alleging that its rollout violated campus policy. The order does not extend to athletics, despite the students’ related request to halt the elimination of the university’s entire NCAA Division II program.

The order will be in place until May 1, when the case is scheduled for another hearing.

“Until that time, the school can take no further steps to eliminate or terminate the academic programs,” said attorney Ross Middlemiss, who is representing the student-athletes pro bono. “Finding and issuing a [temporary restraining order] really demonstrates the severity of the mistakes that have been made and continue to be made by the CSU and the Sonoma State administration. It’s very positive.”

Sonoma State administrators revealed their plans to cut 22 degree programs, six academic departments and all 11 NCAA teams through a university-wide email during the first week of the spring semester in January, citing a $24 million budget deficit brought on by declines in enrollment and state funding.

The move angered professors, coaches and affected students, who received no forewarning and felt the timing hurt their chances to transfer or find new jobs before next fall.

In response, seven student-athletes filed a lawsuit against the school and its leaders in March, alleging that the rollout also violated California State University policy on discontinuing academic programs, which requires holding academic senate hearings, “broad consultation with enrolled students” and specifying pathways for current students to complete their degrees.

“They have to show their work,” said Middlemiss, who was a four-year soccer athlete at Sonoma State in the 2000s. “These policies and regulations are in place to require that, and [the administrators] just blatantly ignored their own rules and went ahead and issued this really broad and harmful decision.”

In a statement, Sonoma State said that it followed established policies, including communicating with and considering feedback from programs affected by the proposed cuts.

The “ruling set a later date when the court will more fully review the parties’ positions, including evidence from the university that SSU is complying with its academic discontinuation policy,” spokesperson Jeff Keating told KQED via email.

Middlemiss disagreed, saying the school is only now seeking out the required community engagement and laid out plans for students to finish their degrees or transfer after the fact. “They’re trying to backfill and go through those steps on the back end, which doesn’t really meet the nature and goal of these [requirements],” he said.

On Wednesday morning, interim Sonoma State President Emily Cutrer sent an email to the campus community asserting that the university had followed policy. Coming after the court order temporarily halting the cuts, the situation has been confusing, said technical theater student Sarah Sherod, whose program is on the chopping block.

“My thoughts kind of are, I don’t know what that [means]. We’re scared,” she said. “The students are kind of given false hope that the programs will be coming back, but my only plan is hoping that the programs do come back.”

Four of the seven students who signed onto the suit only enrolled at Sonoma State this spring, days before the cuts were announced.

According to the suit, Vincent Lencioni turned down another offer to play soccer at a school in Iowa because he was from Santa Rosa and used to attend Sonoma State games as a child.

University officials, the suit alleges, were aware that students like Lencioni and women’s soccer player Abbey Healy would have attended other schools if they knew their sport would be eliminated, and intentionally put off informing students “to ensure that students would not drop out of Sonoma State or transfer prior to paying tuition and fees for the spring semester.”

Healy, a first-year student, transferred from Cal State Monterey Bay ahead of the spring semester after deciding to study philosophy, a program that Monterey Bay doesn’t have but Sonoma State does.

Since philosophy is one of the majors being discontinued at the end of the year, “Healy is now forced to transfer for a second time in her first year of college, because both of her passions were extinguished,” according to the lawsuit.

Although cuts to athletics programs don’t trigger the same community engagement requirements as academic cuts under Cal State policy, Middlemiss and lead counsel David Seidel — who were teammates at Sonoma State — argued they should also be stopped because of “fraudulent” justification by the university.

Sonoma State had estimated it would save $3.7 million by eliminating sports, a figure that Middlemiss called “bogus” and not backed by evidence.

He said it was a good sign for the students’ case that Judge Kenneth English issued the temporary restraining order, adding that not having the same directive extended to athletics “was by no means an indication that we will not be able to prevail with a more fulsome evidentiary hearing.”

“What our lawsuit is going to ultimately demonstrate is that these decisions were absolutely erroneous and a change is needed at Sonoma State,” Middlemiss said.

On May 1, Cutrer, Cal State Chancellor Mildred García and the Cal State Board of Trustees are expected to appear in court for a larger hearing of the students’ argument in favor of a preliminary injunction, which would pause the discontinuation of academic or athletic cuts until the case is fully decided. Any opposition the school hopes to present will need to be filed by Monday.

Until then, the art history, economics, geology, philosophy, women and gender studies and theater and dance departments will remain intact, along with the 22 academic degrees slated for cuts — many of which are in the liberal arts.

It’s not clear how the ruling will affect dozens of staff members whose contracts the university doesn’t plan to renew next fall. During the hearing on Tuesday, English told Sonoma State’s lawyers that employment negotiations with the school’s unions and staff were separate and not before his court.