The parents of a half dozen female footballers have filed suit against three Utah school districts for not providing high school football teams for girls.
Using Title IX as its basis, the suit claims the Jordan, Canyons and Granite districts do not “provide equal treatment and benefits to girls as they do boys because [the] districts give boys the right and opportunity to use the high school football fields, stadiums, facilities, but do not provide girls the same treatment and benefits.”
The Utah High School Activities Association and the respective district superintendents are also named in the lawsuit.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the local Utah Girls Tackle Football League has grown from 50 players in 2015 to over 200 this year. Of these, the lawsuit alleges one hundred would be eligible to play on high school teams.
Herriman High School — in the Jordan School District — approved a girls’ football club earlier this year, and 50 girls who attended the high school’s sophomore orientation signed a form stating they’d like to learn more about girls’ football, the suit says, adding that the other schools would see similar interest.
The lawsuit requests that the districts offer official girls’ teams through Herriman, the other high schools in the district, and the high schools in the Canyons and Granite districts.
Girls would rather play for high school teams than for recreational teams, the parents write in the suit, because they’d have the support of cheerleaders and a band and could earn accolades that are considered by colleges.
They also could compete for regional and state championships, earn school credit for physical education classes, and could have their accomplishments documented by school and local newspapers, the suit says.
Ben Horsley, spokesman for Granite School District, said Monday that the district had received the Title IX complaint, adding that the district had worked with the plaintiff in the past and feels “comfortable” that it is providing the “appropriate amount of school activities for our students, regardless of their gender.”
Interestingly, Google reveals that the Jordan, Canyons, and Granite districts have seven, six, and eight technical/high schools respectively. How many total teams could be fielded with 100 eligible players?
Theoretically, this number could field nine teams … but only if there’s the very bare minimum per team — 11 players. Keep in mind, however, in such a case these 11 would have to play the entire game — on offense, defense, and special teams.
Since this scenario is highly unlikely (due to no substitutes for exhaustion or injuries), we’re looking realistically at around 3-4 teams. It’s certainly conceivable these teams could just play each other several times throughout a season.
The Tribune quotes Granite District’s Horsley as saying if there was sufficient interest, the district “would have no issue in providing such a[n all-girls] program.”
Currently, however, that interest doesn’t exist: There’s “less than a handful” of girls in the whole district who show interest in football and hence participate in the boys’ team, he said.
h/t to EAGNews.org
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