Trans Runner Evie Parts Sues Swarthmore And NCAA After Removal From Track Team

August 19, 2025 Dan Tracer

Evie Parts claims the college and NCAA violated her rights when they barred her from competing as a woman earlier this year.

Featured image: Shutterstock

When Evie Parts rejoined Swarthmore College’s track team in 2023, she was looking forward to one final season of competing in the sport she loved. Instead, her college years ended with a lawsuit.

Parts, a long-distance runner who graduated this past spring, has filed suit against Swarthmore and the NCAA, arguing that she was illegally removed from the women’s track team for being a transgender athlete. The lawsuit also names members of Swarthmore’s athletic department, including head coach Peter Carroll, athletic director Brad Koch, and officials Christina Epps-Chiazor and Valerie Gomez.

Parts was removed from the team on February 6, the same day the NCAA announced new restrictions on transgender athletes in women’s sports. According to the lawsuit, she was told she could only compete on the men’s team or run unattached, and her access to medical care would depend on joining the men’s roster. The complaint also states that she was barred from coaching, travel, per diem, team meals, and even wearing a Swarthmore uniform.

Her attorneys argue that the NCAA’s ban is legally baseless. “We stand by the allegations in the complaint,” said lawyer Susie Cirilli, who is representing Parts. “As stated in the complaint, the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy. Swarthmore College chose to follow that policy and disregard federal and state law.”

The fallout, according to the lawsuit, was devastating. It claims Parts was pushed into “such a depressive state that she engaged in self-harm and in one moment told a friend that she wanted to kill herself.”

Swarthmore responded with a brief statement that expressed support for transgender students while declining to address the specifics of the case. “We recognize that this is an especially difficult and painful time for members of the transgender community, including student-athletes,” the college said. “We worked to support Evie Parts in a time of rapidly evolving guidance, while balancing the ability for other members of the women’s track team to compete in NCAA events. Given the pending litigation, we will not comment any further.”

The NCAA has chosen not to comment.

Parts’ removal was not permanent. She was “fully reinstated” to the team on April 11, and she went on to compete through the end of the season. At the Bill Butler Invitational that month, she won the 10,000 meters. Still, the lawsuit contends that the damage had already been done.

Her case arrives at a moment of heightened political tension around transgender athletes. The NCAA’s new rules came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s sports. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers advanced a bill this spring that would block transgender athletes from competing on women’s teams at both K-12 and college levels. The state’s Democratic-controlled House is not expected to vote on it.

Parts is not alone. Just months after her removal, another transgender runner, Sadie Schreiner, sued Princeton University after she says she was barred from a track meet because of her gender identity. Schreiner’s lawsuit describes her experience as a “humiliating, dehumanizing and dignity-stripping ordeal.”

Parts’ case is now set to test the boundaries of how private organizations like the NCAA interpret and enforce rules against the backdrop of federal protections such as Title IX. For her, the fight is both deeply personal and bigger than her own career.