Public Justice Sues IHSAA, Monroe County School Corp. for Barring Female Athlete
MONROE COUNTY, IN - Public Justice and its cooperating counsel filed a federal lawsuit against the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) and the Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC) late Friday, charging them with discrimination against a 14-year-old student athlete at Bloomington High School South on account of her gender.
Logan Young, a freshman at Bloomington South, is an accomplished baseball player who has played – and excelled – at playing baseball for nearly her entire life. The IHSAA, however, has promulgated a rule, enforced by MCCSC, that prohibits Logan from even trying out for her high school’s freshman baseball team solely because she is a girl.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, states that “Logan will be irreparably harmed by enforcement of the discriminatory IHSAA rule that unlawfully requires her high school to judge her by her gender, not by her abilities.”
At a news conference in Indianapolis on Saturday, lead counsel Sharon F. McKee explained that the legal team attempted to get the IHSAA to change the rule without resort to litigation.
“We have brought this lawsuit because the IHSAA refuses to change its rule,” said McKee of Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin in Philadelphia, PA. “It’s clear that without the help of the court, the IHSAA intends to keep Logan and girls like her from trying to make the team and play the sport they love.”
The lawsuit charges that IHSAA and MCCSC have violated Logan’s rights under both the Constitution and Title IX, which is the federal law that prohibits discrimination in educational programs, including school sports. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction to stop the IHSAA and MCCSC from enforcing its rule, which prohibits all high school girls from trying out for baseball as long as the school offers a softball team. Logan wants to be able to try out for her school’s baseball team this March.
“My daughter has played baseball for nine years and has been successful at it,” said Marie-Elisabeth R. Young, Logan’s mother, at a Friday news conference in Indianapolis. “Her father and I want what she wants and that is a chance to try out and possibly play on her high school baseball team.”
“Baseball is America’s pastime,” said Victoria Ni, a Public Justice attorney and co-counsel in the case. “What Logan Young wants is simply the opportunity to prove herself in America’s pastime, and to be judged based on her merits, not pre-judged . . . based on her gender.”
In addition to McKee and Ni, Public Justice’s legal team consists of Tae Sture, of Sture Legal Services in Fishers, Indiana, and Public Justice’s Goldberg, Waters & Kraus fellow Amy Radon.
Read the full complaint on the Public Justice website at http://www.publicjustice.
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