August 28, 2004

Indiana Law - More on Seymour school barring girl managers on boys' team

Yesterday in this entry we quoted from an AP story about two girls being barred from "managing their [Seymour] middle school boys' football team because officials worry about both sexes mingling on the team bus." The girls had managed the teams last year. One of the girls' mothers had managed the Seymour high school football team in her day. There had been no problems, but the middle school principal said "I feel like it's a proactive decision."

I was heartened today to read this AP story, which reports:

SEYMOUR, Ind. -- An attorney for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union says a junior high school's decision to bar two eighth-grade girls from managing the school's football team violates federal law.

Kenneth Falk, the ICLU's legal director, said the ruling to take the girls off the field is a direct violation of Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in schools.

"The equal protection clause of the Constitution says that any discrimination based on gender be justifiable and clearly this is not," Falk told The Tribune on Friday.

Eighth-graders Tori Meneely and Kimberly Lara were barred from managing Seymour Middle School's football team because officials worry about both sexes mingling on the team bus. Officials also said they wanted to open the positions for boys who are not involved in sports.

Three eighth-grade boys have now taken over the duties of the two girls, who managed the football and basketball teams last season.

Apparently it takes three boys to do the work that two girls handled last year! And this is interesting:
The board deferred the decision to middle school Principal Barbara Bergdoll, who said, "From now on, we will have girl managers for girls sports and boy managers for boy sports."

However, seventh-grade football player Anne Gatewood is permitted to travel on a school bus with her male teammates. Superintendent of Seymour Community Schools Robert Schmielau contends the girls' rights had not been violated under Title IX because the law did not extend to team managers.

Posted by Marcia Oddi at August 28, 2004 06:40 PM