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BONITA SPRINGS — The former attorney for Florida Gulf Coast University and the university’s board of trustees will have another month to settle a lawsuit dealing with allegations of gender discrimination.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in April, Wendy Morris, the former university attorney, claims to have been fired last summer for her role in trying to address complaints about gender inequity in the athletics department.

An extension for reaching a settlement came after a federal judge had asked about the status of the case last week. The deadline for mediation had been at the end of August.

The new deadline is Sept. 30, and court documents show that both parties are continuing to negotiate.

Among the claims in Morris’s lawsuit is that the university’s interim president, Richard Pegnetter, had tried to cover up the initial claims of sex discrimination in the athletics department, and that administrators interfered with her attempts to learn more about the complaints. The lawsuit also alleges discrimination against women in other university departments.

The lawsuit also describes the lack of support Morris faced after the university’s athletics director and associate athletics director came to her saying they wanted to fire the university’s volleyball coach, Jaye Flood, and Morris advised them that wouldn’t be justified.

The university’s policy is not to comment on pending lawsuits.

Morris’s lawsuit is one of several facing the university that relate to complaints about gender equity in the athletics department.

Former volleyball coach Flood is claiming in a separate lawsuit in federal court that she faced retaliation for her role in highlighting accusations of discrimination against female coaches. Another former coach at the university, Holly Vaughn, later joined Flood’s lawsuit.

Both Flood and Vaughn are suing for monetary damages, though their joint lawsuit dose not specify an amount. Flood is also asking for her job back.

Mediation is also planned for that case. Otherwise, it could go to trial next summer.

Vaughn resigned as golf coach last October. Flood was fired in January after a university-ordered investigation concluded that Flood had pursued a romantic relationship with a student who was a volunteer manager for the volleyball team. She appealed her firing, and has argued back against many of the university investigation’s findings.

Just days before her firing was formally announced, Flood had filed her lawsuit in federal court.

In court documents filed in response to the that lawsuit, the university’s board of trustees has denied all the claims of retaliation against Flood and Vaughn.

As for the lawsuit the Board of Trustees of FGCU later filed against Morris in Lee County this spring, alleging breach of attorney-client privilege, little has happened in that case.