By Staff
Athletic Management, 16.6, October/November 2004, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1606/wuswitchingseasons.htm
In Michigan, the battle over girls’ teams playing in nontraditional seasons continues. In July, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld an earlier court’s decision, ruling that the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) is discriminating against girls by placing their sports in nontraditional seasons. The MHSAA has announced it will appeal the case again.
Since the re-introduction of girls’ sports in the late 1960s, girls in Michigan have played many of their sports in nontraditional seasons, including basketball in the fall and volleyball in the winter. At issue is whether the situation causes loss of scholarship and club opportunities and the perception that girls’ sports are less important than boys’.
Also at issue is whether the suit should be decided on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "It’s no longer being argued on the basis of girls’ being entitled to equal treatment to boys, but on every athlete’s right to play at a certain time of year," explains John Johnson, Communications Director for the MHSAA.
The MHSAA is currently appealing the case to the entire panel of 6th Circuit judges, and at the same time, working on an appeal to the Supreme Court in the event that the 6th Circuit declines to reopen the case. It has also started working on model calendars to show schools so that they will be prepared if they eventually have to change their seasons.
A similar case has recently been decided in New York state, where a court ordered a group of schools to move girls’ soccer from spring to fall. Fifty schools just north of New York City have historically played girls’ soccer in the spring to avoid conflicts with field hockey, a particularly strong sport in the area.
Three years ago, John Paul Robbins, an attorney and father of a female soccer player in the area sued two school districts under Title IX. In ruling for Robbins, the judge focused on the fact that spring soccer made girls unable to compete for regional and state titles in their sport, held in the fall when the state’s 649 other schools play girls’ soccer.
"Without a doubt, this difference has a negative impact on girls," Southern District Judge Charles Brieant wrote in his decision. "Scheduling the girls’ soccer season out of the championship game season sends a message to the girls on the teams that they are not expected to succeed and that the school does not value their athletic abilities as much as it values the abilities of the boys."
Although schools in the area have protested that moving girls’ soccer to the fall will damage field hockey programs, Robbins successfully argued that this isn’t the point. "The issue isn’t girls’ soccer versus girls’ field hockey," he says. "It is whether the girls were being treated equally to the boys."
Robbins says high schools should expect to see more Title IX cases initiated by the fathers of female athletes. "There is no more radical feminist than the father of an elite female athlete," he says. "When men who played sports in high school and college have daughters who play, they expect them to get the same treatment they received."