The NCAA News - News and Features

September 29, 1997

ACLU sues Virginia high-school league over scheduling

The American Civil Liberties Union recently filed a class-action lawsuit in southern Virginia on behalf of 11 female athletes and their parents against the Virginia High School League, alleging a violation of Title IX because of the way the league schedules some girls' sports.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville on behalf of students at Lakeland and Nansemond River High Schools in the Tidewater region. The suit alleges the league, which is the sanctioning body for the 282 public high schools in Virginia, discriminates because it does not schedule sports seasons for girls the same way it does for boys.

Ken Tilley, executive director for the Virginia High School League, told The Washington Post that he believes the league is in compliance with Title IX.

The league schedules sports in three groups, based on enrollment. Each boys' sport in the three groups -- Groups A, AA and AAA -- plays during the same time of year. For instance, basketball is played in winter in all three groups.

In girls' basketball, volleyball and tennis, the three competition groups are scheduled for different seasons. Virginia's largest schools -- those in Group AAA -- play basketball in the winter while Groups A and AA schools play in the fall.

Opponents of the practice have argued that playing basketball in the fall hinders the opportunity for players at smaller schools to earn college athletics scholarships.

"It is the high-school league's policy to treat boys and girls differently," said Mary Bauer, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia. "The high-school league has said the system is fine the way it is. They contend it actually benefits girls. Our reply is, 'Why are girls asking to have the policy changed and why are no boys asking to have the same system as the girls?' "

The league has maintained that smaller schools prefer playing girls' basketball in the fall because they do not have the gymnasium space to share with other winter sports.

No court date has been set.

A prominent lawyer has said to expect more Title IX litigation at the high-school level.

At an NCAA Title IX seminar in April, Deborah L. Brake, senior counsel for the National Women's Law Center, told participants that she expected that trend to be established soon.

"High schools will be the next wave of cases," Brake said. "There is a lot of discrimination, and much of it a lot more blatant at the high-school level than at the college level."

Brake also noted that there are many more female athletes at the high-school level than at the college level, with an estimated two million high-school female athletes compared to about 110,000 NCAA female athletes.

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The reason that African-American student-athletes are not achieving the athletics participation percentages they had prior to the implementation of Proposition 48 in 1986 can be attributed partly to Title IX, according to Bill Brill, longtime sports editor of the Roanoke Times and the 1995 winner of the Jake Wade Award from the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Brill, who wrote an NCAA News guest editorial on the subject in 1995, recently revisited the subject.

Brill looked at the NCAA's first publication of graduation rates -- for the entering class of 1990-91 -- and compared it to the most recent one -- for the 1996-97 entering class.

"There is nothing insidious or unusual in the failure of African-American student-athletes to achieve the (participation) percentages prior to the advent of Proposition 48 in 1986," he said. "Instead, the simple answer is the same as it was when I last wrote a couple of years ago.

"In responding to the demands of Title IX and the continuing efforts to achieve gender equity, thousands of additional scholarships have been added for women while there has been a slight drop off in men's overall scholarship numbers, primarily because of limits in men's basketball and football."

Brill noted that in just seven years there has been a dramatic increase in the number and percentage of women athletes. In 1990-91, women got 30.3 percent of the scholarships. This year, they received 37.4 percent. In raw numbers, women's scholarships increased by 3,053 while men's grants dropped by 281.

The addition of thousands of scholarships for women mostly were in sports in which minorities rarely participate, Brill said. The number of black female athletes increased by only 288.

"Because black women tend to participate primarily in basketball and track, and most schools already had those sports, the programs that were added tended to be composed of mostly whites," he said. "This year, in all other sports for women (in Division I-A), there were 6,687 whites (84.7 percent) and 219 Blacks (2.8 percent)."

Brill noted that overall, the percentage of African-American athletes remained about the same.

"Black athletes can be found in large numbers only in football, basketball and track," he said. "In baseball, the 110 institutions had just 82 black players this year, or 3.3 percent.

"In all other sports, this year the percentage of black athletes was 2.7 for men and 2.8 for women. In 1990-91, it was 2.9 and 3.5, respectively.

"There are no racial overtones to any of these numbers. Unfortunately, the significant increase in women's scholarships has come in sports in which black athletes rarely participate. But black men don't play comparable sports, either," Brill said.

-- Compiled by Sally Huggins

Title IX Ticker is a regular feature in The NCAA News. News and information regarding Title IX and gender-equity issues can be sent to The NCAA News, Attn.: Title IX Ticker, 6201 College Boulevard, Overland Park, Kansas 66211-2422.