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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ind. Courts - "IHSAA faces Title IX lawsuit over scheduling: Former coach claims inequity in nights girls and boys basketball games are played"

Nat Newell reports today in a story on the front of the Indianapolis Star sports section:

Former Franklin County High School girls basketball coach Amber Parker filed a Title IX lawsuit in federal district court in Indianapolis on Monday on behalf of her two daughters against the Indiana High School Athletic Association and 14 school corporations whose girls basketball teams compete against Franklin County, Parker's attorney, William R. Groth, said.

Title IX is the 1972 federal statute that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender by institutions that receive federal money. The suit challenges the scheduling differences between boys and girls basketball teams, with boys playing more games on Friday and Saturday nights and girls more weekday evening games, according to a news release. * * *

The suit alleges that the IHSAA was put on notice by federal authorities as early as 1997 that gender-based scheduling disparity was occurring but the organization ignored that warning and allowed the discrimination to continue for years, according to the news release. The defendants will have 23 days to file a response to the suit, though they can request an additional 30 days, according to Groth.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in Chicago sent a letter about the scheduling disparity to Bob Gardner, then commissioner of the IHSAA in 1997. At that time, girls teams played 10.5 percent of their games on Friday nights compared with the boys' 48.1 percent, according to a story in The Indianapolis Star on March 1, 1997.

The ILB hopes to post a copy of the complaint.

In a related matter, the story continues:

The Monroe-Gregg School District, which includes Monrovia High School, has agreed to correct several Title IX violations raised in a complaint filed by parent Steve Knieper, according to Knieper.

Awards will be provided equally for boys and girls teams and statistics will be posted on the school's Web site for the boys and girls teams. A junior high school girls golf team will be established for the fall season. The girls basketball team will practice after school instead of at 5 p.m. The school has until 2010-11 to switch its schedules and provide an equal number of Friday and Saturday night games for the boys and girls.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 21, 2009 08:54 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts