Michael Burch

Michael Burch was a wrestling coach at UC Davis who sued the University between 2003-2006.  Burch had been the head wrestling coach and a lecturer in religious studies at UC Davis from 1995-2001. He also taught at the Berkeley School of Theology during the same period.  Burch was named the Men's Coach of the Year at UC Davis in 1997 and 2001 (California Aggie). He had unprecedented success with the UC Davis wrestling program but was denied a contract renewal in June 2001.  Athletic administrators refused to provide a reason for not renewing Burch's contract.  Burch claimed the university's athletic administrators had retaliated against him for publicly advocating for women wrestlers.  The legal conflict following Burch's ouster spanned more than a decade until the last of three Federal cases had been settled or tried in Federal courts. A Federal judge in a non-jury trial determined UC Davis to be out of compliance with Title IX law.  UC Regents settled with Burch for $725,000 in December 2006 just days before that first trial was scheduled to begin.  In 2009 two female student-athletes (i.e. the "Brust Case") won a second related class-action settlement that led to more funding for women's sports at UC Davis.  In February 2010 a significant legal decision reinstated the third and final case - the women wrestler's complaint (Mansourian v. UC Regents) after it had been dismissed.  Subsequently UC Davis was ordered to pay an additional 1.35 million dollars in 2011.  

Burch had been an advocate of girl's and women's wrestling since the late 1980's and hosted one of the first and longest running college women's wrestling tournaments in the U.S while at UC Davis.  He came to UC Davis in August 1995 from Brown University (1992-95).  At the time of his hiring he was 33 years old and one of the youngest NCAA Division I head wrestling coaches in the nation .  The leading female wrestler at UC Davis, Afsoon Roshanzamir (and later a key witness in the Title IX lawsuit) won a silver medal in the women's world championships in the 1990's and in 2016 became the first female head wrestling coach for the United State Olympic Team (Rio De Janeiro, Brasil).  Burch began his competitive wrestling at age 5 in Redding, CA. He was the undefeated California State wrestling champion at 133 pound weight class (1980) while wrestling at Shasta High school. He won the western regional high school championships as well and earned high school All-American honors at Fargo, ND the same year.  He was coached by his father Max Burch, a California Hall of Fame Wrestling Coach.  Following high school Burch competed on athletic scholarship at California State Bakersfield where he wrestled varsity for a perennial NCAA championship team in the early 1980's. Burch was named to the Freshman All-American team in 1981 and won a conference championship in 1983.  In 1988 and 1992 he silver medaled in US Olympic regional wrestling trials at the 62 kilo weight class. Following his departure from UC Davis in 2001 he was re-hired by Brown University. He served as Brown's assistant wrestling coach until 2009 and then at the Moses Brown School (preparatory) in Providence, RI from 2010-2013. He coached Moses Brown School's first Rhode Island state wrestling champion (Andrew Howard).  In February 2010 following the courts reinstatement of the women wrestlers legal complaint, the California Aggie published a Guest Opinion by Burch where he stated, "The vision I still support is that of a few dedicated young UC Davis women, now alumnae, who have demonstrated that equity in education starts with the voices of students, not the failed policies of a corporation."  In April 2010 UC Davis announced the complete elimination of the sport of wrestling for males and females. in 2013 Michael Burch returned to Northern California where he serves as a minister in the SF Bay Area.

2020-12-02 14:53:33   https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/settlement-wrestling-coach-lawsuit-725k-former-coach-female-athlete-dispute/ https://www.browndailyherald.com/2006/11/16/wrestling-assistant-burch-grapples-with-ucdavis-over-title-ix/ https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/sports/09sportsbriefs-ucdavis.html https://feminist.org/news/california-title-ix-case-settled-for-725000/ http://title-ix.blogspot.com/2007/01/details-of-uc-davis-settlement-released.html https://theaggie.org/2010/02/25/guest-opinion-michael-burch/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-school-wrestling-was-fading-then-came-the-girls-11577797653 —michael.burch01

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1507236.html

2020-12-02 14:55:06   http://thecaliforniawrestler.com/http-afsoonwrestling-com/ —michael.burch01