The largest school in Hawaii is about to undergo a landmark Title IX case.
The New York Times released an expose last week about a group of students who are in the process of trying to sue the biggest public high school in Hawaii, James Campbell High.
It is “a potential landmark Title IX case that alleges widespread and systemic sex discrimination against female athletes,” according the the New York Times.
In the article they had some of the first accounts from the family and followed the story of Ashley Badis, a former water polo player for the school.
In the grievances listed by the plaintiffs they cite that the polo team was forced to practice in the ocean rather than in the safety of a pool because the school had failed to provide them one. Officials allegedly threatened to cancel the season, and claimed essential forms had not been submitted, even when they had been.
This is not the first instance of discrimation at the school. The New York Times brought up an instance reported by the Honolulu Civil Beat in 2018 that “detailed gender disparities at Campbell, among other schools, reporting that female athletes had not had a locker room since the school was constructed in 1962.”
This had girls resorting to crouching in bushes because they simply had no other options.
Women’s sports took second best to men’s when it came to field time. “Sometimes, girls’ soccer players could not practice until the football and boys’ soccer teams had concluded their workouts on the same field,” said the Times.
These all were just a few of the many claims listed in the lawsuit, all of which are violations of Title IX.
The law which was enacted almost exactly 50 years ago will be facing a big test in this trial, which will have serious ripple effects in the community of high school sports and the needed requirements for women going forward.
“I think this case is important, foundationally. It has the potential to really be a wake-up call for schools that continue to ignore the law and don’t take it seriously,” Ellen J. Staurowsky, a professor of sports media at Ithaca College and the principal investigator for a recent Title IX report, told the New York Times.
“The Hawaii case, though, is pushing forward and goes beyond questions of systematic
problems of participation and unequal treatment: It also accuses Campbell officials of retaliating against the girls for raising concerns by identifying the plaintiffs, who had used only their initials in the lawsuit, and by warning faculty members to speak carefully around them,” said the New York Times.
In this case, the defendants include the Hawaii Department of Education and the Oahu Interscholastic Association and the planitffs include the formetioned group of students.
There were debates on whether or not the case would move forward as a class action suit which lead to a “lengthy legal battle.”
The judge on the case, Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi of the Federal District Court in Hawaii, ruled that the plaintiffs had “provided sufficient factual matter to plausibly allege” that the association “may be subject to the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX” according to the New York Times.
The trial date is now set for Oct. 2023.
