PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A federal decide on Tuesday authorised an order that requires Brown University to pay greater than $1 million to cowl attorneys’ charges and different bills associated to a authorized case introduced by a number of student-athletes who challenged the Ivy League college’s plan to drop a number of girls’s varsity sports activities.

The girls stated the plan to scale back the varsity sports activities to membership standing in 2020 violated a consent decree that dated to 1998 and stemmed from a landmark Title IX case. In that case, college students challenged the college’s resolution to remove girls’s gymnastics and volleyball.

Title IX is the federal regulation requiring equal alternatives for girls.

Tuesday’s order contains $1.135 million for the attorneys’ charges and $40,000 for litigation bills.

“This order should send a message to schools nationwide,” Arthur Bryant, who represented the ladies, stated in a press release. “Title IX is the law. It prohibits sex discrimination. If schools violate Title IX, they will pay. If schools violate Title IX, refuse to admit it, and fight in the courts, they will pay more.”

In the settlement of the 2020 dispute, Brown agreed to reinstate its girls’s varsity equestrian and fencing groups.

A voicemail in search of remark was left with a Brown spokesperson.