Private School Suspends Girl Who Sued to Play on Boys' Team

The local news in New Jersey recently reported about the decision of St. Theresa's School in Kenilworth to expel a female seventh grade student and her sister after the seventh-grader's unsuccessful attempts to sue the school for the right to try out for the boy's basketball team. A judge ruled in January that she had no right under applicable law, and the family is appealing.

If this student went to public school, she would have a strong argument that the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause protects her right to try out for the boys' team, which is the only basketball team offered by her school. The Equal Protection Clause requires state and local governments, including school districts, to avoid generalizations and stereotypes when making any sex-based classification. Under this rationale, female students have prevailed in many cases seeking the right to try out for a variety of sports, including sports like basketball that are covered by Title IX's contact sports exemption.

If she went to public school, the student and her family would also have legal recourse to challenge the decision to expel the student and her sister as apparent retaliation for the family's decision to appeal, since Title IX provides strong protection against retaliation. But the majority of private religious elementary and secondary schools do not accept federal funding, insulating them from the obligation to protect students civil rights. Unless St. Theresa's is among those private schools who participate federal programs to subsidize student's school lunches or to purchase classroom technology, the student and her family cannot rely on this statute for recourse.

Often when I write posts about stories where Title IX did not apply, I make the point that students and their families need to be careful when selecting private schools, since that decision often subjects the student to sex discrimination without legal recourse. But it also a cautionary tale against privatization as a policy matter. If federal support for public schools wains or disappears under the current administration -- a possibility signaled by president's nomination of Betsy DeVos -- more and more families may be compelled to accept private schools as a result. This shift would send more and more students like this one into the void of civil rights, with no statutory or constitutional protections available.

Catholic Diocese in PA Bans Schools' Participation in Coed Sports

The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Catholic Diocese has prohibited its schools from participating in coed sports where "substantial and potentially immodest physical contact" could occur. The policy, which also cites "safety" as a motivating concern, not only prohibits area Catholic schools from integrating their wrestling, football, and rugby teams, but also requires their teams for forfeit games or matches against (or against teams that include) opposite-sex opponents.

The policy change, which went into effect this summer, coincides with a federal district court ruling earlier this year that acknowledged a female student's right under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause to try out for her public middle school's wrestling team. Because the Catholic schools of Harrisburg compete against public schools that would be subject to the ruling, it seems plausible that that the court's decision was at least part of the Diocese's motivation to enact its new policy.

Are there any legal implications of the Diocese's new policy?  After all, Catholic schools, by virtue of being private rather than government-run, are not subject to the Equal Protection Clause. Therefore, despite the fact that courts have repeatedly rejected the generalizations and stereotypes (like safety and modesty) that underlie most decisions to separate girls and boys in sports, such rulings are not binding on private schools like those run by the Diocese. Moreover, while Title IX would apply to any of those private schools should they happen to accept federal funds (such as, for instance, to run a school lunch program), Title IX is strangely permissive of the segregation of contact sports. Therefore, a student who opts in to private, Catholic education has no legal right to try out for teams designated for the other sex. 

But I also think about the rights of students at public schools whose athletic opportunities are limited by virtue of their schools' decision to schedule competition against Catholic schools who are subject to this policy. Public school students, whose rights are protected the Equal Protection Clause, have the right to play on coed teams. And even though Title IX does not require a school to allow coed contact sports, schools that do allow it are prohibited by Title IX from discriminating on the basis of sex against those who make the team. When public schools schedule athletic competition against a school that is required to forfeit, that school's coed team ends up with fewer opportunities for competition compared to the teams that are not coed. Or, the girls on that coed team, who could possibly be benched or volunteer not to play in order to preserve the game, end up with fewer competitive opportunities. Either way, scheduling games against the Catholic schools creates discrimination against those teams that have a female participant (and thus, on the basis of in sex). In the interest of compliance with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, public schools ought to leave the Catholic schools off of their competition schedules. The law may not insist that private Catholic schools treat students equally on the basis of sex. But the consequences of a Catholic policy should not be allowed to impair the experience of coed participants at public schools. 

Student Scholarship Addresses Contact Sports Exception

I recently came across two student-written articles that critically examine Title IX's contact sports exception -- the regulatory provision that requires schools allow cross-over tryouts, (e.g., a girl trying out for a boys' team, when there is no girls' team in that sport) but only when the sport is not a contact sport.

Jessica Constance Caggiano's note in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review criticizes the exception as both the product of a contributor to stereotyped notions about girls' and women's physicality and athleticism. She calls for a policy change that would eliminate this limitation.

Marielle Elisabet Dirkx's comment in the Mississippi Law Journal addresses the unconstitutionality of the contact sports exception in light of courts' decisions that prohibiting cross-over participation violates the Equal Protection Clause when it is based on over-generalization and stereotypes.

These articles are:

Jessica Constance Caggiano, Girls Don't Just Wanna Have Fun: Moving Past Title IX's Contact Sports Exception, 72 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 119 (2010).

Marielle Elisabet Dirkx, Calling an Audible: The Equal Protection Clause, Cross-over Cases, and the Need to Change Title IX Regulations, 80 Miss. L.J. 411 (2010).

Default was not "consequence" of Title IX

There were a lot of issues/controversies raised by last week's story about a male high school wrestler who defaulted his match rather than wrestle a girl. Religion, violence, gender roles. Title IX was not one of them. Why? Because of the contact sport exception.
So I was surprised to read a blog post on the Chicago Tribune website Chicago Now entitled "The Unforeseen Consequences of Title IX" by Kirk Mango. Note that the title is pretty ubiquitous. Opponents of Title IX use it all the time to talk about a myriad of issues. But the post colon blog title "Top Iowa High School Wrestler Defaults, Won't Face Girl" was a little surprising. Because, again, Title IX does not require integration of teams when the sport is a contact sport. And as Joel Northrup pointed out when he issued a statement about his default to Cassy Hekelman, wrestling is a contact sport.
Girls have gained access to wrestling either because they have just been allowed to participate or because they have sought legal remediation under either an individual state's equal rights amendment or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
But no one seems to be writing pieces titled The Unforeseen Consequences of Equal Protection.
For more on this I highly recommend Dr. Sarah Fields's book Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America. She specifically addresses the legal and cultural controversies girls' wrestling has engendered.
So I hope Mr. Mango picks up Fields's book. As someone who in involved in promotion of youth sports (he has a website called Becoming a True Champion about empowering individual athletes) he--and all who work in youth through intercollegiate sports--should know what Title IX does and does not do.

2/24 UPDATE: Mr. Mango has changed his post to reflect the fact that Title IX was not a factor in the integration of wrestling. This is the new post.

Private School League Benches Female Kicker

Via New Moon Girls blog, I found this story from ESPN.com about Kacy Stuart, a female freshman at New Creation Center, a private high school near Atlanta, who was recently dismissed from her position as kicker for the school's football team, after a ruling by the private school conference to which New Creation belongs.

The article points out that Kacy had no trouble playing football when she attended public middle school, but it is wrong (sorry, NMG blog!) to credit Title IX for Kacy's public school football career. Since football is a contact sport, Title IX does not require schools to allow girls to try out. Rather, it is the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause that has in many cases required schools and other public entities to give girls equal access to football and other contact sports. But the trouble for Kacy is that the Equal Protection Clause does not govern private schools, so the Georgia Football League can discriminate all it wants.

This case is a good example of why Title IX's contact sports exemption is harmful and should be repealed. When it comes to private schools -- at least, those private schools that accept federal funds in some form, as many do -- Title IX is the only source of federal law that prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of sex. Thus, the statute should be comprehensive in its coverage of sports, and not exempt football due to some outdated, essentialist idea that it is categorically inappropriate for girls.

Law Review Note on Contact Sports Exception

The current issue of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal includes a note by law student Blake Furman called "Gender Equality in High School Sports: Why There Is a Contact Sports Exception, Eliminating It and a Proposal for the Future." (citation: 17 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 1169 (2007)).

As Furnam explains, Title IX's regulations "permit[] academic institutions to exclude women from even trying out for a men's contact sports team solely on the basis of gender and with no regard for the individual female's skill or ability level." Unlike noncontact sports, for which schools must either allow women to try out for the men's team or offer an equivalent separate team, when it comes to contact sports, schools are not obligated to do either. Contact sports include "boxing, wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, football, basketball and other sports the purpose or major activity of which involves bodily contact." 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b).

Furnam argues that the regulatory rationale for exempting contact sports is outdated and unfair and should be eliminated. He then discusses Professor Glenn George's "50/50" approach -- requiring gender integrated teams with half male and female players -- and argues for its application to high school sports.