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Sex Discrimination Case in Hawaii Could Change High School Sports Across the U.S.


EWA BEACH, Hawaii – It was tough when Ashley Badis and her female water polo teammates had to practice at sea, weathering fickle winds and raging waves because their high school didn’t give them a swimming pool.

But it’s humiliating, Badis says, when she learns of female athletes on other teams wearing school gear all day, running to nearby Burger King to use the bathroom, or changing clothes in the stands or upstairs. bus. The boys don’t have to worry as much as they already have their own dressing room and equipment.

“Hearing how many concerns and complaints they’ve had – it makes me feel like I’m not alone in this, but it’s so wrong that we’ve all been treated this way,” said Badis, now 21 years old, said in an interview. family home in this Honolulu suburb.

Badis is one of several plaintiffs in a potentially landmark Title IX lawsuit alleging widespread and systematic sexism against female athletes at James Campbell High School, the high school. largest public school in Hawaii.

However, the Hawaii case is moving forward and goes beyond questions of systemic problems in participation and unequal treatment: It also accuses Campbell officials of retaliation against the girls for raised concern by identifying the plaintiffs, who used only their initials in the lawsuit, and by warning instructors to speak carefully around them.

It’s amazing how school officials repeatedly threatened to cancel the girls’ water polo season, said Badis, then claimed that half of the program’s paperwork, such as application forms consent and medical, was missing even though it was filed.

And now, following a federal judge’s ruling in July that the case could proceed as a class action, the outcome of the trial could affect generations of girls in Hawaii and their activities. acts as a broader stress test for the promises and responsibilities of Title IX.

Some of the plaintiffs and their families spoke out publicly for the first time, in interviews with The New York Times. What makes the case particularly poignant is the moment of class certification – the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of Title IX – and the site of the dispute – the home of former US representative Patsy T. Mink, one of the the architect of the measure. and a respected political figure in Hawaii. Weasel died in 2002.

“What struck me during this 50th anniversary year is that we really know a lot,” said Ellen J. Staurowsky, professor of sports communications at the University of Ithaca and principal investigator of the high school. little about what’s going on in the high school space. Title Report IX published by the Women’s Sports Foundation. “I think this case is important, well-founded. It has the potential to really be a wake-up call for those schools that continue to ignore the law and not take it seriously.”

Referring to Mink, Staurowsky added: “If we can’t get right with the status she represents, then we have some really serious thinking to do.”

The defendants include the Hawaii Department of Education and the Oahu International Academies Association, the body that oversees high school sports. The sports association’s inclusion in the lawsuit is notable because groups that do not directly receive federal funding are generally not required to comply with Title IX. But Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi of the Federal District Court in Hawaii ruled that the plaintiffs had “provided sufficient factual information to reasonably allege” that the association “could be subject to the terms of the law.” Title IX anti-discrimination clause.

A spokesman for the education department and the sports association said they would not comment on pending litigation. Gary H. Yamashiroya, special assistant to the state attorney general, who represents the defendants, wrote in an email: “Hawai’i has strict legal ethics rules about public trials, so there’s no reason why you should try it out. Unfortunately we are unable to comment on this case. “

In court documents, the defendants argued that school officials did their best and that the female students suing were not entitled to retroactive corrections: “The Department of Education has implemented and continues to continue to make reasonable efforts to satisfy the Plaintiffs. “

Sports are of paramount importance in Ewa Beach. Among its local heroes are Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins’ quarterbackand the 2005 Little League World Series winning team – First of four championships for Hawaii.

Campbell, whose team is known as the Sabers, has more than 3,000 students, more than three-quarters of whom are Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or Hispanic. But in February 2018, Honolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit newsroom, detailed gender difference at Campbell, among other schools, reported that female athletes had not had a locker room since the school was built in 1962.

Having access to only a handful of rotting portable toilets (sometimes locked due to vandalism) on the playground, some girls drink less water – despite the hot and dry climate of Ewa Beach – to Avoid running to the nearest available bathroom to grab a snack, a restaurant or a gas station, half a mile away.

According to the lawsuit, some of the girls would “crouch in the bushes” to relieve themselves.

Speaking via videoconference recently, Abby Pothier, a former soccer and water polo player, articulated the daily outrages of being a female Campbell Saber.

All day long, she carried a duffel bag containing soccer balls, bras, shin guards and more. It was inseparable from her backpack and lunchbox.

Sometimes, women’s soccer players cannot practice until the men’s soccer team and the men’s soccer team have finished their training sessions on the same field.

Pothier, now a sophomore at the University of California, Irvine, says: “It’s 9:30 now. “The lights will go out or the sprinklers will turn on – maybe both.”

While the team plays in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas, the girls rarely leave Oahu, according to the lawsuit.

However, when the women’s soccer team qualified for state league games in Maui, the team was not allowed to stay overnight. So they had a tight window to fly there, play and return, often without showering.

“We’ll rush after the games, put everyone in trucks to get back to the airport, and we won’t have time to eat,” Pothier said. “It was like: ‘Sorry, you have to get to your gate. You can eat when you get home. ‘”

The Ashley Badis family is also entrenched in Campbell athletics. But not by choice.

When Badis signed up for water polo, in the spring of her freshman year after competing on the winter swim team, she learned that the school hadn’t hired a coach, despite repeated requests from the girls.

Following in the footsteps of Ashley’s father, Dominic Badis Jr., a firefighter, although he knew nothing about the sport. It was only when he called for help on Facebook that he recruited another coach: a friend through the fire department who played in high school.

The school does not require paperwork or background checks.

“It was scary,” said Caron Badis, Ashley’s mother.

After Civil Beat published its story on gender disparity, Hawaii’s American Civil Liberties Union request Wookie Kim, the group’s chief legal officer, said the Department of Education put together a plan to tackle the inequality, saying that 14 schools across the state have lockers for male athletes but There is no locker for women.

But frustrated by the lack of progress, Hawaii’s ACLU – in partnership with Legal Aid at Work, a San Francisco nonprofit and a professional group at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP – sued in December 2018 on behalf of for the plaintiffs.

“The irony is that the month we were there to file in 2018, the state of Hawaii presented a statue to Patsy Mink,” said Elizabeth Kristen, senior attorney at Legal Aid at Work and director of Fair Play for Girls in Sports Works.

After a The legal battle drags on Regarding whether the case could be moved to a class action, Judge Kobayashi set a hearing date for October 2023.

Plaintiff – Ashley Badis and sister Alexis; Abby Pothier; and another former student – not looking for any damage. Instead, they are pushing for change and accountability.

“I want to make sure things get better for future generations,” said Ashley Badis, now a senior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “I don’t want them to go through what I have to do.”

During a tour of Campbell’s perimeter, State Representative Matthew S. LoPresti, a Democrat representing Ewa Beach, pointed out improvements, such as new baseball and softball fields with artificial turf. created next to a small building with some lockers for softball players (there is a separate locker room for baseball). And while it’s hard to be ideal, female athletes are also allowed to use the men’s locker rooms.

Meanwhile, state legislators have allocated more 6 million dollars this year for the Ministry of Education for Campbell’s athletic facilities, including the women’s locker room, as part of a statewide, more than $60 million Title IX effort.

“My job is to catch up,” says LoPresti.

But he also supports litigation.

“I support anyone who fights for justice,” he said. “At the end of the day, we are still fighting a patriarchy that prioritizes sons over daughters.”

One person watching the case from afar is Gwendolyn Mink, daughter of Patsy T. Mink.

An academic with a background in politics and women’s studies, Gwendolyn Mink praised Campbell’s plaintiffs, saying high school students often face extraordinary pressure from classmates and the community. And even though Athletics Fair Disclosure Actpassed in 1994 requiring colleges to publish gender equality data in their athletic programs, there is no comparable federal law at the K-12 level.

“We have made great strides in opening up, allowing women in and redistributing the gender balance,” Mink said. “But in terms of the organizations that do the work to create equal conditions for the nurturing of your aspirations, that is where I think we really fell.”

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