Lawsuit cries foul on school district

PALMER — Two Colony High School softball players are suing the school district claiming unequal treatment under the federal guidelines for sport programs.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Anchorage on behalf of two girls who are named only by initials, says that the softball program is not provided with the same quality or number of facilities as the baseball program, which violates what’s referred to as Title IX, which mandates boys’ and girls’ sports receive equal treatment.

“It’s not a novel proposition that we would treat our daughters with the same consideration as our sons,” said Samuel Schiller, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

Schiller runs a law practice in Tennessee that specializes in Title IX suits. He said he’s litigated Title IX cases from coast to coast. He said he wanted to make clear, though, that the suit is not about money and doesn’t ask for any cash award, only attorneys’ fees.

“The parents in this suit are not asking for any money, and in fact they do not want in any way to harm a boys’ sport,” he said.

The suit claims the softball team is forced to raise money to pay for equipment and supplies, and that baseball teams get better practice fields and competition fields than the girls. Softball, the suit points out, has to use Bumpus Fields, but can’t because there’s alcohol served there. Baseball, by contrast, is played on Hermon Brothers Field.

Lebron McPhail, director of education at the district to whom the activities directors report, was on vacation Monday and unavailable for comment. The district’s Title IX expert, Matthew Teaford, would not comment about the suit.

“I did see a copy of the complaint but I didn’t have a chance to review it, and even then I probably couldn’t comment about what I felt were or were not the merits of it,” he said.

District Spokeswoman Catherine Esary, asked about the suit, consulted with Superintendent George Troxel.

“It has been the school district’s policy that we do not comment on pending litigation,” she said.

Myrl Thompson, a member of the school board and head coach of the Wasilla High School baseball program, said the suit doesn’t really hold water, especially given what’s transpired over the last year. He said the baseball programs have been working hard to help softball programs and that the board took softball into account when considering whether to fund baseball.

“We’ve actually more than leveled the playing field. There’s going to actually be more softball fields than baseball fields,” he said.

This year, he said, is the first year that baseball coaches will receive a stipend, but along with that funding the school board chose to fund stipends for softball.

He said the district also funded $15,000 per school for transportation costs, which the softball and baseball teams are supposed to split. Another $10,000 or so from the board’s reserve account was coupled with a $7,000 private donation to upgrade fields for both baseball and softball.

And the school board did it all, he said, in a very tough year when funding was tight. The lawsuit, he said, shocked him. Thompson said he’d discussed Title IX with administrators and that it wasn’t deemed to be a problem.

“It would be a Title IX problem if there were a bunch of girls who wanted to go out for softball and then couldn’t play,” he said.

But schools with enough girls field softball teams. And girls can go out for baseball if they want to. The fledgling baseball program at Houston High School, for example, fields a couple of girls, he said.

Schiller, asked if the plaintiffs would be satisfied if the two sports were treated equally said that would be an oversimplification, but that given the facts in this case, he thinks they probably would.

“It’s about fundamental fairness,” he said.

But Thompson said he can’t really see where the inequity is and hopes the suit can be resolved.

“I would like to see the baseball and softball communities on the same page,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.

Editor's note: See related story at www.frontiersman.com/sports