Student athletes, staff and alumni of Sonoma State University have launched an online petition to urge university leaders to reverse course on a plan to eliminate all intercollegiate athletics at SSU as part of a proposal to slash $20 million in spending.

The four-day-old “Save Seawolves Athletics” petition had received 4,480 signatures on change.org as of Thursday morning.

On its website, the “Save Seawolves Athletics” campaign says that the decision to cut sports at the school “completely ignores the profound impacts that athletics have on the student-athletes, the student body, and the college itself, and sets a dangerous precedent putting all small-school athletics across the country in jeopardy.”

In addition to the petition, SSU coaches have filed two civil rights complaints and filed public records requests, seeking more information into the administration’s cost analysis and processes which they dispute.

Coaches also plan to file a class-action lawsuit.

These actions come in the face of Interim President Emily Cutrer’s Jan. 22 announcement that the university would be laying off dozens of faculty and staff and eliminating a swath of academic departments, degree programs and all intercollegiate athletics in an effort to close a nearly $24 million budget gap.

Faculty, students and alumni from other shuttered departments and programs have similarly started to organize.

Cutrer and other administrators will hold a virtual town hall at 1:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss plans to balance the budget by cutting staff and programs, including its athletics department.

Get the Zoom link to the event at sonomastate.zoom.us.