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Friday, May 13, 2005

“Johnny, Beat That Girl Or You’re Suspended.”

Jerry Connors, the father of Meaghan, a seventh-grader at McMurray Middle School in Washington, is suing the school to force boys on the wrestling team to wrestle his daughter. It seems that league laws say that if an opponent refuses to fight, the match is forfeited. Since boys are refusing to fight girls, they win by default.

Sylvie Shiosaki is another girl at the school with the same non-problem.Meaghan Connors didn’t have to endure any forfeits herself this year. As a seventh-grader, she wasn’t McMurray’s best wrestler in her weight class, so she wasn’t on the varsity squad, the only one that officially competes at the middle-school level. Still, she came home upset when Shiosaki got forfeits. She told her father she felt degraded, like an “object of lust.”

Shiosaki said three of her 11 matches this year were forfeits from boys at the two schools, significantly shortening her season.

Of course, this match is getting political. The girls’ defense, as stated by Nancy Hogshead-Makar, legal adviser for the Women’s Sports Foundation:

…said the question is whether the WIAA, an organization that includes public and private schools, is a public entity. In a recent court case in Michigan, a similar organization was ruled to be a “public actor.” And that means it can’t allow policies that discriminate against girls, she said. […]

“What if, for religious reasons, people said they were not going to wrestle African Americans, or wrestle people of different religions?” she asked. “When you put it in those terms, you can see how the person who is not able to compete is being harmed.”

Oh.

Posted on May 13, 2005 06:39 AM. Permalink