Women's+Sports-+Court+Cases

High school Cases-

•Ensley High in Birmingham, Alabama- Coach Roderick Jackson- Girl's basketball team being treated lesser than the boy's basketball team. He complained about the discrimination, and was fired. Jackson filed a lawsuit, and it was dismissed. He appealed it, and the Supreme Court took the case. Their ruling was that Coach Roderick Jackson couldn't be fired for complaining about discrimination.

•Texas- Susie Halbert's daughter found that her school was discriminating against girls in 1999. Filed a lawsuit by getting aid from Texas Civil Rights Project. The school was putting money for boy's football before girl's cheer leading. They won the case.

•Alabama- Ron Randolph was unhappy that his daughter's softball team had one uniform while the boys had three. Filed a complaint and the girl's team got a state-of-the-art field. He said, "If I pay ten dollars in taxes, five should go to my son, and five should go to my daughter."

•Alexandria, Virginia High School- Male baseball players got to play on "Field of Dreams" as it was known. It was a state-of-the-art field. The women got a broken-down field with no dugouts and no added luxuries. The players complained and the parents hired a lawyer. The high school moved the girls to a better field, but it's still not completely fair. This case is ongoing.

College Cases-

•Duke- Heater Mercer was a football place kicker on the Duke team and was cut from the team in 1997. She knew it was discrimination. She had been discriminated against all along. The head coach said she should try out for a beauty pageant and sit with her boyfriend in the stands. She filed lawsuits. The court said that Duke doesn't need to let her play, but while she is playing, treat her like a male student. She got two million dollars, and plans to use the money to setup scholarship funds for female kickers.

•Louisiana State- No female soccer or football teams. Three female soccer players and two softball players filed lawsuit. Women were ignored, and told that there was not enough interest in making teams, and also mocked. Athletic director told one women, he was for female soccer to see girls running in little short and called her "sweetie", "cute", and "honey". The court made the sports equal. Before the lawsuit, 49% of the college was made of women, and only 29% of women had sports.

Brown University- November 1996. Brown downgraded women's gymnastics and volleyball teams from having the university fund the teams, to having donors fund the teams. Court said that Brown University violated Title IX.

Note- June 2002 30 colleges and universities sampled and acknowledged with failure to give girls fair scholarships. Scholarship failure varied from $4 thousand to $26 thousand during a female's 4-year college career. If it had been fair, women would have gotten $6.5 million in athletic scholarships.

Go to Women's Rights - Breaking Barriers in Sports (Title IX)