Inequities in scheduling and facilities

Last week's episode of Only a Game included a story on inequities in scheduling and facilities on the three stories you should know segment of the show.

It was Boston Globe writer Shira Springer's story and was born out of Victoria Azarenka's complaints during the first week of (the recently concluded) Wimbledon that women were not getting the good courts and the good times. Nothing much came of Azarenka's public calling out of the All England Club--shocking. But Springer did a good job of turning the moment into a conversation about how female athletes are treated.

My initial response was something in the realm of "no kidding" and "is this really what we should be talking about?". I mean the Women's US Open was held at one of 45's golf courses last weekend because the USGA would not move the event way back in October when news of his sexual assaults was revealed to the world. And then USGA officials would not/could not publicly answer a question about the organization's position on sexual assault!

But then I remembered that I am a feminist scholar of sports and that ranking all the ills is not really in keeping with my philosophy and desired intentions. I also opened up my email to find a Google alert about facilities inequities in Oregon (high school softball/baseball fields). Also, inequities in scheduling and facilities do not exist in a vacuum; they are an indicator of the culture of the sport's governing body.

Springer's segment focuses on professional and Olympic female athletes and it is an important conversation given that, as she herself notes, much of the conversation about inequality at this level has been directed at pay inequities. And as much as I appreciate Springer's segment and the potential attention it will generate, this is not new. Just two years ago, we were watching a premier international soccer tournament played on artificial turf. The 2015 Women's World Cup participants and their supporters protested the

Host Bill Curtis made a side comment about Boston University when Springer mentioned the very inequitable scheduling of women's hockey in Sochi in the last Olympics. He noted that BU has the same issue. It was almost a under-his-breath comment but it's important to note. BU established a women's hockey team in 2005. The team has been successful fairly quickly. They play Walter Brown Arena, built in 1971, which seats approximately 3,800 fans. The men play in Agganis Arena, which opened in 2005 (such a coincidence!), and seats about 6,100 fans. I have not been to either arena so I cannot comment on the level of upkeep or general comfort and accommodations. But on its face, this does not look like a good situation. It reminds me of the montage in Love and Basketball that compares the experiences at USC of Q and Monica.

Because Walter Brown is a facility that the women do not have to share unlike most of their DI counterparts, maybe they think this is a good deal. But maybe they look at the treatment that men receive and think that having their own arena is not nearly enough. The point is that the women of US National Team are used to be being put in substandard arenas and in non-primetime slots. So even if they know it is unfair and even if they hate it, it was likely not a surprise when they encountered the same situation in Sochi.

Female athletes who come up through the American intercollegiate system are accustomed to differential treatment. Professionals like Victoria Azarenka who came up through a non-scholastic junior sports system do not have the same experience. This is not to say that athletes who come up in club systems around the world are treated equitably (in another sport movie reference: Bend It Like Beckham). I am sure almost every professional female athlete can share stories about gender inequality. But in a sport like tennis--or basically just tennis--where pay equity is less and less of an issue, players might be a little surprised that there are other gender issues to tackle.

And heading back to where Title IX is a factor: interscholastic and intercollegiate sports are still failing miserably in their obligations for equal treatment. We wrote an article about this five years ago. We could easily write another today with just examples from the past few years.Trickle down or trickle up change--it does not matter in what direction or who is doing the influencing, but remedies to these inequities will only come with changes to attitudes about women's sports and female athletes.

Lawsuit Against Texas School District Allowed to Proceed

Last summer, a parent and his two daughters sued the Stephenville (Texas) Independent School District, alleging that gender disparities in athletics at Henderson Junior High, where the daughters attend and play volleyball, constitute violations of Title IX.  Recently, a federal judge determined that part of the lawsuit can go forward, having denied the school district's motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' claims that athletic opportunities available to girls are inferior to those available to boys.  Specifically, the plaintiffs allege inequities in the assignment of seasons, the number and quality of coaches, the adequacy of facilities and locker rooms, the scheduling of practice times and competitions, and support from booster clubs and other outside funders.  These allegations were sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss, since they are ripe for litigation and, if proven, would constitute violations of Title IX.  With respect to these claims, the case can proceed to the next stage of litigation, which is discovery.  If the plaintiffs gather sufficient evidence in discovery, the case could go to trial--though settlement is another possible outcome. 

The court did,  however, dismiss the plaintiffs' claim that female students receive an inequitable number of athletic opportunities.  Because the complaint did not allege that the girls were seeking to participate in any athletic opportunities not offered by the school, the court determined that they did not have standing to challenging the absence of those opportunities.  This aspect of the ruling underscores one of the differences between public and private enforcement of Title IX.  Anyone can file a complaint with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights--you don't need to be someone personally affected by discrimination.  In contrast, private litigants seeking to enforce Title IX in the courts must have standing in order to do so.  They must maintain throughout the litigation that they have a stake in the outcome of the case.  The plaintiffs here were able to do that with their equal treatment claims because they are current student-athletes at Henderson.  But if they graduate before the case is finally decided, it could potentially be dismissed as moot.  Because of these challenges, we tend to see more public than private enforcement of Title IX with respect to interscholastic athletics.    

Decision: McCully v. Stephenville Ind. Sch. Dist., 2014 WL 292147 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 20, 2014). 

HS Athletic Director Suspended Over Scheduling Dispute

The Boston Globe today reported that a high school athletic director in Lexington, Massachusetts, will serve a one-week suspension for falsifying an email to other athletic directors in the Middlesex League, claiming that a parent was threatening to sue the League over inequities in the girls' basketball schedule.

The email worked, in that it helped motivate the League to change its schedule so that girls' teams would have the same number of prime time games as boys' teams -- we blogged about that change, back in December.  But the abruptness of the change, along with the apparent threat of litigation, triggered a backlash in the community, as we noted in this earlier post.  Kathryn Robb, the parent who had initiated discussions with the Lexington H.S. athletic director Naomi Martin, received negative publicity when community members upset with the schedule change came to believe that she had single-handedly forced the change by threatening to sue. And it was Martin's falsified email to the other athletic directors that set Robb up to take the fall.  Martin's email incorporated text from an email she had received from Robb, but which she had doctored to suggest that Robb had threatened litigation, which she did not.  Martin's email also misidentified Robb as a civil rights attorney and made it seem that her "threat" addressed the entire league, when in fact, her concern had been limited only to Lexington High School.

Now that the truth has come out, Martin has apologized to Robb, and the Lexington school district has suspended Martin for one week without pay.  Lexington's superintendent, while condemning Martin's conduct, characterized Martin as well-intentioned, in that she embellished Robb's concern in order to "strengthen her advocacy" for Title IX compliance.  Yet, this decision came at great personal cost to Robb, who became the scapegoat for an unpopular schedule change, and was ridiculed and alienated from the basketball community in which she had participated as a coach as well as a parent.   

In my opinion, Martin isn't the only one deserving of blame in this story.  Yes, she threw another woman under the bus, so to speak, in an ends-justify-the-means approach to Title IX advocacy.  But the Middlesex League itself is also at fault. After all, the League apparently needed a threat of litigation, however false, in order to do the right thing.  Scheduling girls in the inferior, "warm up act," time slot is a clear violation of Title IX, with any doubt of that erased by the ruling of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals last year, so the Middlesex League should have changed its scheduling practices already, like the other leagues in Massachusetts have done.  In addition to the League, the other --and perhaps even worse -- culprits in this story are the parents and community members who were so outraged by a decision that boys would now have to share the prime time spotlight with girls. Even if Robb had threatened litigation, she shouldn't have had to pay the social cost they imposed upon her for pursuing equal treatment. By retaliating against Robb, these folks have ensured that anyone in position to similar to Robb's and Martin's in the future will think twice about pushing for change. They, along with their counterparts in communities across the country, are the real reason it takes more than 40 years to achieve equality in athletics. 

Don't you dare complain!

We mumble and grumble--sometimes more loudly than at other times--when schools get praised by the community and media outlets for taking some action that appears to be making a situation better for female student-athletes (new softball field, addition of teams, renovated locker rooms) when what they're really doing is simply following the law and ending (some) discriminatory practices.
But when the media perpetuates backlash, well then you get a talking-to.
Mark Goodman, writer for HomeNewsHere.com out of Woburn, Massachusetts is not the only--just the latest--purveyor of Title IX backlash. Covering the Middlesex League, Goodman questions whether the hockey teams in the league will have to alter their practice of scheduling doubleheaders in which the girls' teams play first, followed by the boys' contest, the majority of the time. (Despite popular sentiment that everyone is fine with this arrangement, they do need to alter their scheduling practices.)
The question arose because the basketball teams in the league recently changed their game scheduling practices after a parent complained about the discrimination inherent in always putting the girls as the warm-up act in doubleheaders. Some people are not happy about this change citing damage to the school community. My guess is that the people who are happy are not so vocal in their support. Perhaps because people attack those advocating for equal rights, including reporters like Mark Goodman, who wrote: "all it takes is for one person to get bent out of shape and threaten legal action."
A parent is not getting "bent out of shape" when he or she asks for the school to provide equitable treatment to its female students. What that parent is asking is that the school comply with the law. A parent doesn't even need to "threaten legal action" because anyone can file a complaint with OCR. Anyone. An OCR complaint--even if it's just based on scheduling--can trigger a full investigation into all aspects of athletics in a district. All aspects: facilities, opportunities, equipment, coaching. And that will have administrators bent into all sorts of shapes.

College, HS League Take Steps Toward Compliance

Two stories about how Title IX is still improving athletic opportunities for female students were in the news this weekend:

Madison Area Technical  College will reportedly add a women's soccer team to help balance out athletic opportunities, which presently favor men despite women making up more than half of the student body.  The college is under investigation by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, in response to anonymous complaint filed last year.

And here in Massachusetts, the high school athletics conference in Middlesex County has rescheduled its basketball games to ensure equity in the number of prime times girls and boys receive.  The Middlesex League was reportedly motivated by a Lexington supporter, who explained that the League's former system of scheduling girls' games first in all double-headers constituted sex discrimination under Title IX.  Under the new schedule, girls and boys will play on different nights, with JV leading off, followed by the varsity.

Girls' b-ball goes (more) prime time in Indiana

Two years ago this month, the lawsuit initially filed by a former girls' basketball coach in an Indiana high school was dismissed. It was appealed, and last January an appellate court found sufficient violations of both Title IX and the Equal Protections Clause in the way the state high school athletic association scheduled girls' and boys' basketball games. The boys received the "prime time" spots--weekends, while girls' games where scheduled on weeknights.
This week a consent decree was filed with the court, which states that over the next few years two more girls' games will be moved to prime time slots (each year). 

The little moments in Title IX history

In the grand scheme of things, Title IX is not that old. Despite this, there is a lot of its history that we just don't know. We know about the legislative history. We know about the big cases, the watershed moments, the key players, the tireless advocates.
We don't know about all of the little things. Today whenever a complaint is filed--anonymously or not--we can often find out about it. But this is a recent phenomenon.
We don't know how many coaches went to their administrators 20, 30, 40 years ago and said "hey, the women's team needs better uniforms. And we are legally entitled to them." We don't know how many parents sought better treatment for their daughters.
So whenever I hear stories of such moments, I get a little excited because some of the gaps get filled and I am reminded of the ways in which activism works at both macro and micro levels.
Today I read one such anecdote about Kathy Delaney-Smith, the current coach of Harvard's women's basketball team. It was told by sports journalist Jackie MacMullan who was coached by Delaney-Smith at Westwood High School in Massachusetts right before the latter went to coach at Harvard and the former went to play at University of New Hampshire.
MacMullan, in a speech at a fundraiser for UNH basketball, told the crowd about the power of Title IX and the power of Kathy Delaney-Smith.
If you saw No Look Pass, the documentary about former Harvard player Emily Tay, you got to witness the power and passion and colorfulness of Delaney-Smith. These were traits she apparently had when coaching high school as well. MacMullan said that as soon as her coach got tenure at Westwood High, she filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school. She wanted the girls to have better uniforms and equipment and games scheduled on Friday nights--like the boys. And by the time MacMullan graduated, they had personalized warm-ups and games every other Friday night.
Stories like these show us that while concerted efforts were put into getting girls more playing opportunities, other smaller, less visible efforts were being made to improve the quality of the opportunity.

Indiana Scheduling Practice Violates Title IX, Appellate Court Rules

Today the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a scheduling practice that reserves "prime time" Friday night scheduling for boys basketball games while relegating the girls' games mostly to the less preferential weeknights, violates Title IX. The case at hand was filed in 2010 by a former Franklin County, Indiana, basketball coach, Amber Parker against Franklin County school district, the Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference, and its high school members. Earlier, the district court dismissed the suit after determining -- without sufficient analysis, in my opinion -- that the scheduling disparity was substantial enough to constitute a denial of equal treatment under Title IX. But the plaintiff appealed, and today's appellate court reverses the lower court's ruling and reinstates the case.

Unlike the district court, the appellate court acknowledged that the scheduling of most girls basketball on weeknights has a negative affect on girls that constitutes a substantial deprive of equal treatment. For one thing, community members are less likely to attend weeknight games, which deprives the girls' teams of audience and community support. It also imposes on girls a larger burden that their male counterparts to balance sports with academic work during the week. Moreover, the court acknowledged that the scheduling disparity can harm female athletes in a psychological way because it casts girls' activities as inferior to boys. This inferior treatment, reasoned the court, contributes to the perception that girls' sports are "second class" and undeserving, a perception that deters girls from participating in sport, "in contravention of the purposes of Title IX." This perception is also transmitted to fans and contributes to their lack of support for girl teams.

The appellate court also reinstated plaintiff's claims that the schools' scheduling practices violate the Equal Protection Clause, which district court had wrongly dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds.

Resolution Agreement Reached at Adrian College

An anonymous reader mailed me a copy of a Resolution Agreement between the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and Adrian College in Michigan. In 2008, we blogged about ongoing investigation into a complaint against the college stemming from among other things the college's failure to include a women's locker room in its newly constructed "Multi-Purpose Stadium." (see here and here). Apparently, the inequities between men and women's sports at Adrian College were significant, as the college has agreed to remedies in every area covered by Title IX's athletic regulations. Specifically, the college has agree to:

• Evaluate its intercollegiate athletics program "to identify one or ore women's sport team to add in the 2012-2013 academic year."
• Develop a written replacement schedule for equipment and supplies, including uniforms, which will ensure equity by gender.
• Increase the number of competitive events for softball and women's tennis.
• Ensure that women's softball is not the only team stuck with 6 am indoor practices, but that that burden is shared by men's teams as well.
• Ensure that the head coach for men's and women's track splits his time equally between the teams, and to hire an assistant coach for women's track.
• Improve hiring practices to attract more qualified coaches to the women's program, including by increasing compensation and other conditions of employment to make the job more attractive to qualified applicants.
• Construct a new locker room for women in the Multi-Purpose Stadium.
• Renovate existing women's locker rooms in other facilities.
  
• Renovate the women's softball facility to allow for night play, concessions, changing areas, and spectator viewing.
  
• Assign the same number of "equivalently qualified" medical and training staff to men's and women's games.
• Provide equivalent publicity ("e.g., media coverage, statistics maintenance, attendance at games, and other services") to men's and women's teams.
• Provide recruitment funds to men's and women's teams "in proportion to each gender's participation rate in the athletics program" and, as needed, to the women's program at a greater rate in order to make up for the "significant" underrepresentation of women in the athletics program.
• Adhere to various reporting and monitoring requirements with respect to these promises.

OCR will continue to monitor the agreement until it determines that the College has fulfilled its terms.

Scheduling remedies in our own back yard

Several friends have informed us about a settled Title IX complaint right in our neighborhood. Amherst Regional High School has agreed to make changes in both game and practice scheduling.


Amherst resident Craig Goff filed a complaint with OCR almost a year ago about the scheduling of girls' sports, and last May* the school agreed to remedy the inequities by:

• scheduling an equal number of prime time games;
  


• scheduling an equal number of nighttime under the lights games;



• implementing a full schedule for girls' soccer, tennis, and volleyball (which had reduced schedules due to budget cuts; the athletic director said she had thought that--over the course of the reductions--cuts had been made equitably among boys' and girls' team; but apparently not);
  


• and ensuring equal access to desirable practice times in shared facilities.

And in case there is a question of why this matters (though we have spoken about it before, mostly in posts about the scheduling of girls' versus boys' basketball games), Goff makes a good point. When girls' games are scheduled exclusively during the day, fewer parents can attend. This also means, as Goff noted, that these teams get less community support. Parents are their student-athletes' biggest fans and advocates. The visibility of girls' and women's sports can be directly related to when their contests are scheduled, which is why scheduling is one of program areas Title IX covers.

This story continues our theme this week of "it's not just quantity--it's quality." Also of note, Goff is a parent of a former Amherst student-athlete. He noticed the inequities when his daughter played soccer for the school a decade ago. A good reminder that anyone can file a complaint. (But note it can be anonymous.)





* I couldn't discern from the article whether OCR actually made it out to Amherst or if the school changed their ways based on consultation with other entities before the investigation occurred.

Indiana scheduling case in court

This week the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the Indiana high school scheduling case. The original lawsuit, filed in 2009 by a former girls' basketball coach charged that boys' basketball in the district got favorable treatment in the scheduling of games. (Other posts about this case can be found by clicking on the Indiana tag.]
No word on when a decision will be made.
We will make sure to note any further news out of Chicago this week.

Former coach files separate lawsuit

Amber Parker, the former coach of the girls' high school basketball team in Franklin County, Indiana, has filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that the non-renewal of her teaching and coaching contract was due to her other lawsuit claiming disparity in scheduling of girls' and boys' basketball games. Parker had to "hand off" that lawsuit when she moved to Massachusetts (to those who had standing in the case as parents of current players). It is currently under appeal in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Parker is claiming that her firing was a direct result of her public comments (and subsequent lawsuit) about the disparities in scheduling and that the superintendent told a school board member that he wanted Parker fired. The complaint also notes that the contracts of two other varsity coaches were renewed the year Parker was let go even though their teams had worse records.

Appeal in Indiana scheduling case

A summary judgment issued by a federal judge in Indianapolis is being appealed by the plaintiffs in the scheduling of girls' basketball games in Frankling County, Indiana. This is the case started by former coach Amber Parker (who has since moved out of the state). Last year the judge ruled that the schools (and IHSAA, since dropped from the lawsuit) were not in violation of Title IX. Erin noted some of the issues with the judge's rationale when the decision was released and it seems her hopes for an appeal have been realized.
The appeal will be heard by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

A change of seasons

OK the title is a misleading and mostly my own projections as I get ready to go outside and shovel/plow for the third time this week.
What has really happened is that the Schuylkill League in Pennsylvania has decided to switch the days of play of the boys' and girls' basketball teams. (So change within the season.) The boys have usually played a Tuesday/Friday schedule and the girls Monday/Thursday. But after seeing a Title IX complaint filed in the nearby Tri-Valley League, Schuylkill decided to be proactive. And thus the schedule change. Hopefully there is not too much consternation over the switch. No mention of what the plans are for future scheduling: keeping the midseason switch or altnerating years, or something else entirely.

Indiana Scheduling Case Decided On Summary Judgment

Yesterday, federal district court judge William T. Lawrence of the Southern District of Indiana dismissed claims against the Indiana High School Athletic Association and area high schools that scheduling girls' basketball for fewer Friday and Saturday night games violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. We've been following this case for a while, see prior posts here, here, here, and here.

In evaluating whether the high schools themselves violated Title IX, Judge Lawrence acknowledged that the regulations require equal treatment between boys' and girls' teams, and that the regulations specifically cite "scheduling of games and practice time" as an aspect of this determination. 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c)(3). The judge also cited OCR's 1979 Policy Interpretation, which provides additional guidance for evaluating equality between athletic opportunities offered to each sex:

a. Whether the policies of an institution are discriminatory in language or effect;
or
b. Whether disparities of a substantial and unjustified nature exist in the benefits,
treatment, services, or opportunities afforded male and female athletes in the
institution’s program as a whole; or
c. Whether disparities in benefits, treatment, services, or opportunities in
individual segments of the program are substantial enough in and of themselves to deny equality of athletic opportunity.

Disparities in treatment, the judge concluded, must be "substantial" to constitute a violation of Title IX. In other cases involving scheduling, the judge acknowledged, courts have concluded that decisions to schedule girls' sports in a nontraditional season violated Title IX because such decisions limited the female athletes' access to role models, skills development, and team-building. But playing more weeknight games does not harm female athletes in these particular ways, so therefore, he reasoned, the high schools' scheduling decisions do not create substantial disparities in violation of Title IX.

Missing from the judge's analysis is an independent evaluation of the effect of a disparity in night-of-the-week scheduling, rather than season-of-the-year. Granted, judicial decisions to date have dealt with the former rather than the latter. But simply to conclude that the plaintiffs didn't suffer the same kind of harm as those in the season-of-the-year case is insufficient reasoning, as it fails to consider whether the harms from having more weeknight games might be substantially harmful in a different way. Greater academic challenges and a diminished opportunity to develop a fan base are two possible harms that come to mind. Another possibility -- which actually does have support in the season-of-the-year scheduling cases, is that scheduling girls' sports more often at a non-preferred time stigmatizes girls' teams with second-class status.

Another concern I have is that the factors cited by the judge from the 1979 Policy Interpretation are alternative, not conjunctive, suggesting that noncompliance might result from failure to comply with either standard independently. It seems to me, then, that the judge should have evaluated under part a. whether the schedule contains "discriminatory language or effect" as well as whether the effect of discrimination was "substantial," an element of b. and c. A schedule that relegates girls games to more weeknight games seemingly constitutes "discriminatory language or effect."

The judge also decided that the IHSAA did not violate the Equal Protection Clause, nor (in a separate decision issued last week) Title IX, reasoning that IHSAA did not determine the schedule of games; it only tells member institutions how many games it can schedule, when the season starts and ends, and limits each team to no more than two weeknight games per week. The judge did not endorse the plaintiff's argument that the IHSAA's failure to require gender equity in scheduling was "deliberate indifference" to discrimination, noting the absence of precedent for such a standard in these kinds of cases.

I am rooting for an appeal.

Decision: Parker v. Indiana High School Athletic Ass'n et al, 1:09-cv-00885-WTL-WGH (S.D. Ind. Oct. 6, 2010) (retrieved from Pacer, not yet available on Westlaw).

Which came first? The rock or the hard place?

The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has decided to reverse the order of their basketball doubleheaders this coming season. Doubleheaders within the conference have traditionally featured a women's game followed by a men's game. But after an anonymous complaint filed with OCR and the subsequent investigation, the conference has decided to reverse the order. The order of women first, men second, the complaint indicated, gave the impression that women's games were mere warm-up acts for the main attraction.
The GLIAC is not, however, the first conference to make such a change in its scheduling. Other conferences rotate annually or some switch in midseason. Whether such scheduling is legal has not been determined because it was a complaint that was filed--not a lawsuit.
Regardless, the situation raises some issues. Lest my critics think I am all "this is super duper awesome" when any action is taken in the name of gender equity in sports, I do worry.
Let me state first that I think women's games should be the main event an equal amount of the time if main event status/time has to be shared between men's teams and women's teams. While going to women's hockey games at the University of New Hampshire on Sunday afternoons was a pleasant distraction from all that reading I should have been doing in college, it would have been nice to have the team get the primetime Friday or Saturday slot more often.
But do I worry about what the effects will be if half the audience leaves after the men's game? I do. But then again I worry about the effects when female athletes see fans trickling in at the very end of their games clearly there to watch the men.
While I do believe that the promotion of women's sports is a major problem, we're not in Iowa* in terms of basketball (greater popularity among girls' basketball than boys') and the "if you build it they will come" mantra that was born there.** Building is good. Building it is great. But there is no magical realism moment where cars are lining up, headlights blazing in the night to get to women's basketball games. What I hope is that there will be no moments of red tail lights lined up heading away from arenas as the women start their games.
This article from the NCAA that discusses the other conferences who have already changed their schedules to give women's teams more primetime opportunities does not say what the effect has been on audience numbers. I do think that putting women's sports in the spotlight will change attitudes about female athletes--but not overnight; not even in one season I would suspect. I hope that conferences, administrators, fans, and even (especially?) detractors allow us some time. Because a lot more change has to happen, and it extends far beyond start times.

* anymore but I liked it when I was there and do go back to visit.
** okay it was technically born in Hollywood, but it was delivered in Iowa.

Indiana case switches hands

A mother of a female basketball player at Franklin County High School in Indiana has filed a Title IX lawsuit on behalf of her daughter alleging a disparity in the scheduling of boys' and girls' basketball games.
If this case sounds strangely familiar--well, it is.
Tammy Hurley filed the suit, the same one filed by Amber Parker, on Monday because it appears that Parker and her family are moving to Massachusetts thus making their case moot. So Hurley has stepped in to ensure that the issues are addressed. Hurley's case is currently assigned to a different judge, but her lawyer is working on getting it moved to Judge William Lawrence who currently is handling Parker's case.

Indiana scheduling case on the docket

The case being brought by Amber Parker on behalf of her daughter against the Indiana High School Athletic Association and Franklin High School (where Parker is also the girls' basketball coach) is headed to summary judgment.
At issue in the case is the longstanding complaint that the boys' basketball team gets more opportunities to play their games during primetime (Friday nights). This has been an issue for over ten years (as we noted in the past).
I couldn't find an actual date on which the case will be heard but the judge's decision will come within a few months.

Indiana scheduling case moving forward

The case brought by former basketball coach Amber Parker, on behalf of her daughters, against the Indiana High School Athletic Association and Franklin County schools is moving forward. A federal district court decided the case would proceed to trial. But the defendants are still waiting on a motion they filed that argues the case violates the 11th amendment. [I'm pretty sure that's not going to work out for them, but I am not the legal expert.]

Last we had heard about the case, Parker was looking for a lawyer. She appears to have found one and is set to make the IHSAA take responsibility for their history of discriminatory scheduling.

Reaction to IHSAA lawsuit

Seems as if reaction is mixed regarding the current scheduling of boys and girls basketball games in Indiana. This also means there is mixed reaction over what schedule changes might occur if the lawsuit is successful.
It certainly does not appear that--at least for now--the lawsuit has engendered any violent or overly passionate responses that involve bashing Title IX or girls' sports generally. Always a good thing.