Title IX lawsuit could affect FHSAA action – Planned cuts in prep sports schedules results in legal action BY JASON THOMPSON Gulf Breeze News – Published June 25, 2009 – gulfbreezenews.com
A lawsuit filed last week in Jacksonville seeks to halt the Florida High School Athletic Association’s recent controversial decision to trim game schedules for most sports by 20 to 40 percent during the next two academic school years.
Attorney Nancy Hogshead- Makar filed suit in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville last week charging the FHSAA’s decision constitutes gender discrimination in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Florida Educational Equity Act.
By a 9-6 margin, the FHSAA Executive Board in April voted to cut team sports schedules with the exception of varsity football and competitive cheerleading by 20 percent and junior varsity schedules by 40 percent. According to the FHSAA, some member schools, mostly in the southern part of Florida, requested the cuts in an effort to save money.
Approximately 36,000 boys compete in varsity football, while only 4,000 girls compete in cheerleading. That disproportionality spurned Hogshead- Makar, a respected college law professor and former Olympic athlete, to file suit on behalf of six parents and their daughters known as Florida Parents for Athletic Equity (FPAE). It challenges the legality of the schedule reduction known as Policy 6.
“FPAE is pleased that the FHSAA is finally taking gender equity more seriously after we filed our lawsuit in federal court, along with a motion for preliminary injunction and a motion for a temporary restraining order,” Hogshead-Makar said in an e-mail to Gulf Breeze News on Monday night.
