'Shame on you': Maher blasts former university over funding cuts

Ilona Maher has criticised Quinnipiac University for their decision to downgrade women’s rugby from a varsity to a club sport.

The 29-year-old wrote “shame on you” and tagged two of the university’s accounts on her Instagram account which boasts over five million followers

Varsity sports are funded directly by the university, offering scholarships and professional coaching. Club sports are either run directly by students or supported by the university, that often require students to pay fees.

It was with the Quinnipiac Bobcats that Maher established herself as a force in the USA. Playing at centre she won three National Intercollegiate Rugby Association championships. She also received the MA Sorensen Award, which is annually handed to the USA’s top collegiate rugby player.

In 2024 Maher was part of the USA Women’s Eagles Sevens squad that won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Paris. Last year she represented the USA Women’s Eagles at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.

Quinnipiac is recognised as a pioneer of varsity of women’s rugby as just the second-ever NCAA Division I varsity women’s rugby programme.

Becky Carlson, Quinnipiac Women’s Rugby head coach, told NBC Connecticut: “We built something from scratch, won three National Championships, brought the university an Olympic medal… forward-thinking leaders see the power of women’s sport and support the space for it. Today, I’m afraid, Quinnipiac is lacking those leaders and it is truly crushing.”

In their statement Quinnipiac University stated that they hoped to fund a men’s indoor and outdoor distance programme was identified as an area to increase “participation opportunities within the existing track and field structure”. Additionally, Title IX [a 1972 federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any educational programme] compliance was cited as a “central component of the evaluation process”.

Colleen Doherty, an assistant coach with the programme, has started a change.org petition to reverse the decision and has questioned whether the change is lawful.

“Importantly, women’s rugby was not added arbitrarily,” Doherty wrote. “It was introduced in 2011 in direct response to a landmark Title IX lawsuit, Biediger v. Quinnipiac University, in which courts found that Quinnipiac failed to provide equitable athletic opportunities for women. As part of the 2013 settlement, the university committed to expanding women’s athletic opportunities and specifically invested in and elevated women’s rugby as a varsity sport, including increased scholarships, staffing, and resources.

“Cutting women’s rugby now raises serious concerns about whether Quinnipiac risks falling out of compliance with Title IX once again. Title IX requires institutions to provide equitable participation opportunities for women; removing a women’s sport, especially one created to address a prior gender equity gap, could reduce those opportunities and recreate disparities that federal courts have already ruled unlawful.”

The petition to reinstate women’s rugby at Quinnipiac University has already received over 9,000 verified signatures.