How Appealing has a link to a 6th Circuit ruling today that "holds that high school sports seasons have been scheduled in a manner that discriminates against female athletes on the basis of gender," and also points a narrower 2nd Circuit ruling (soccer only, and limited to two school districts). Some quotes from the ruling:
Communities for Equity—an organization of parents and high school athletes that advocates on behalf of Title IX compliance and gender equity in athletics— and the individual plaintiffs (collectively, CFE) brought a class action lawsuit against the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA), arguing that MHSAA’s scheduling of high school sports seasons in Michigan discriminated against female athletes on the basis of gender. The district court concluded that MHSAA’s actions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court with regard to the plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim, thus finding no need to reach the Title IX and state-law issues.Posted by Marcia Oddi at July 27, 2004 12:25 PMAt issue in this case is whether MHSAA’s scheduling of athletic seasons and tournaments for six girls’ sports—basketball, volleyball, soccer, Lower Peninsula golf, Lower Peninsula swimming and diving, and tennis— violates the law. With the exception of golf, all of these sports are scheduled during the nontraditional season (meaning a season of the year that differs from when the sport is typically played). Cmtys. for Equity v. Michigan High Sch. Athletic Ass’n., 178 F. Supp. 2d 805, 807 (W.D. Mich. 2001). Although Lower Peninsula girls’ golf is played in the spring—the traditional season for golf—the fall season, when the boys play, is more advantageous. Id. No boys’ sports are scheduled in nonadvantageous seasons. Id. at 838.
Girls have historically played in the less advantageous seasons because of the way that high school athletics developed in Michigan. MHSAA’s executive director, John Roberts, explained in a 1990 article titled Sports and Their Seasons, published in MHSAA’s Bulletin, that “[b]oys’ sports were in [MHSAA member] schools first and girls’ sports, which came later, were fitted around the pre-existing boys program.” Id. at 815.
In its findings of fact, the district court painstakingly discussed each sport at issue and analyzed why play in the nontraditional season (or, in the case of golf, in the traditional season) harmed female athletes. Id. at 817-36. Among the harms found by the district court are the following: * * *