Court Opinion

ID: 9483452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:20:48.360649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:38.135640
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My colleagues on this panel have decided to bypass the constitutional issues and place decision on a state-law ground presented as a pendent claim but not resolved by the district judge: the Indiana High School Athletic Association acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying Ryan Crane eligibility to play varsity golf. If the constitutional issues were substantial I would be happy to duck them. They are not; neither for that matter is the issue of state law.
In our sports-obsessed society, high school students (with or without parental connivance) will sometimes try to change schools in order to have a better chance of playing on a varsity team. The Indiana High School Athletic Association (composed primarily of public schools — so its actions, I agree, are state action, NCAA v. Tarkanian, 488 U.S. 179, 193 n. 13, 109 S.Ct. 454, 463 n. 13, 102 L.Ed.2d 469 (1988); Griffin High School v. Illinois High School Association, 822 F.2d 671, 674 (7th Cir.1987)) has therefore found it necessary to forbid a student who transfers to a new school district without a corresponding change of *1327residence by his parent or guardian to play on the varsity team in the new school district unless he presents “reliable, credible, and probative evidence” that the transfer was due to “an event(s) outside the control of the student” or “a change(s) in the student’s home status, not within the student’s control.” Ryan Crane’s parents are divorced. He used to live with his mother, but because “she was experiencing disciplinary problems with [him] and ... he was getting into trouble at school and ... his grades were suffering” his parents decided he should move in with his father — who lived in a different school district. An assistant commissioner of the Association ruled that Ryan, having failed to present “reliable, credible, and probative evidence” that the transfer had occurred for reasons beyond his control, could not play varsity golf for his new school. The Association’s executive committee affirmed the ruling.
The district judge held that the Association’s decision unreasonably burdened the right of Ryan’s parents to make decisions concerning the welfare of their family. The judge did not make clear what class he thought was being discriminated against— indeed though he used the term equal protection his opinion is more readily understood in terms of substantive due process— but the plaintiff has tried to correct his oversight by specifying as the class discriminated against children whose parents are divorced. I do not see how the rule can be thought to bear more heavily on divorced than on married parents. A student whose parents were divorced and lived in different school districts would have a better shot at being able to switch between those districts than one whose parents were married and lived with each other and with him, obviously in a single district. The Association merely doesn’t want to give the child of two households a free shot; that would have the perverse effect of discriminating against the children of married persons.
Even if the rule or, more plausibly, its application in this case could be thought to bespeak insensitivity to the problems of children of divorced parents, I should not think the Constitution involved. Although that august document is singularly bereft of references to family, I accept that the states no longer enjoy a free hand in the area of marriage, reproduction, the family, and sex. After cases like Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), and Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977), and Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 98 S.Ct. 673, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978), I assume that a state could not forbid divorce tout court, or limit married couples to two children, or forbid such couples to have sexual intercourse more than twice a month, or, coming a bit closer to the present case, require parents to live apart, or to send their children to boarding school. Such regulations would be held to violate equal protection or due process or both. Niehus v. Liberio, 973 F.2d 526, 538 (7th Cir.1992) (dictum). But that is far from saying that every state rule — more, every interpretation, every application, of every such rule — that could be thought to interfere with the family, or rather with a particular family, is subject to fish-eyed scrutiny by federal judges applying a vague norm of reasonableness. That would draw the whole of family law — not to mention large parts of other law, including the law of voluntary associations, even, if one can speak so, of the “law” of varsity eligibility in Indiana — into the federal courts. A public employer that granted spousal benefits to its employees would be in constitutional hot water because the employer would be discriminating against divorced persons. Every award of custody would raise a constitutional issue — whereas in fact the states are assumed to be competent to resolve custody issues without the oversight of the federal judiciary.
The concerns that I have just expressed led this court in Hameetman v. City of Chicago, 776 F.2d 636, 643 (7th Cir.1985)— a decision not cited by the district judge— to rule that “state or local regulations are not unconstitutional deprivations of the right of family association unless they regulate the family directly,” as in the hypo*1328thetical cases that I gave in the preceding paragraph. The rule of the Indiana High School Association does not regulate the family directly. Hameetman involved a residency requirement, and that is the essential character of the rule challenged here. A case even closer to ours is Niles v. University Interscholastic League, 715 F.2d 1027 (5th Cir.1983). A league rule required that a student be a resident of the school district for a year before participating in interscholastic sports. The rule was used to prevent a student whose residence had changed as a result of his divorced mother’s remarrying from participating in an interscholastic sport. The court rejected the student's claim that this application of the rule infringed his constitutional rights of travel and of family association. See also Hardy v. University Interscholastic League, 759 F.2d 1233 (5th Cir.1985).
Even if (as I do not believe) Hameetman and Niles are wrong, and a state regulation might be unconstitutional if it had “the incidental and unintended effect of inducing family members to live apart,” Hameetman v. City of Chicago, supra, 776 F.2d at 643 — more precisely, to make Ryan live with his mother rather than with his father — the plaintiff would have to show that the regulation was irrational, for rational rules that regulate marriage and the family directly are constitutional even if they burden or deter marriage, Califano v. Jobst, 434 U.S. 47, 50-54, 98 S.Ct. 95, 97-99, 54 L.Ed.2d 228 (1977), let alone divorce. So Ryan Crane would still lose. The assistant commissioner was not required to accept vague general testimony that Ryan is “difficult,” and therefore would be better off living with his father, as a compelling reason to allow him to play varsity golf for his new school. A decision for Ryan would invite strategically motivated transfers thinly disguised as transfers in the best (nonathletic) interest of the student. The temptation would not be limited to the children of divorced parents. Children of high-school age do not always live with their parents. I mentioned boarding school. And some students live with relatives other than their parents. More would do so if high school athletic associations allowed students who changed school districts even though their parents’ residence was unchanged to retain their varsity eligibility. In Niles the student moved in with a man who, at the request of the student’s mother, had been made his legal guardian. 715 F.2d at 1029.
My colleagues complain that the assistant commissioner and the executive committee did not adequately articulate the reasoning underlying their rulings in Ryan’s case. It is easy for us professional judges to score points off our lay counterparts. The Indiana High School Athletic Association may not have realized that it would be held to the adjudicative standards of a federal court. The failure of the executive committee to issue a written opinion can hardly be blamed on the committee. Ryan Crane’s father could have requested such an opinion and did not. In light of this failure we should treat the committee’s decision as we would a jury verdict (which is a decision not accompanied by an opinion), and uphold it if it is rational. Which it is.
What I have said so far should be enough to show that my colleagues are mistaken to suppose that an Indiana state court would think Ryan Crane had a good claim under Indiana law. He would not even if that law empowered courts to invalidate any ruling by a voluntary association that the courts thought arbitrary and capricious; for the Association’s ruling was not that. But that is not the test. United States Auto Club, Inc. v. Woodward, 460 N.E.2d 1255, 1260 (Ind.App.1984), explains that the “principle of judicial noninterference in the affairs of voluntary associations” means that “in the absence of fraud, illegality, or violation of a civil or property right, the courts will not interfere with the internal affairs of an association or club.” That is, courts will not enforce the internal rules of the association. State ex rel. Givens v. Superior Court, 233 Ind. 235, 117 N.E.2d 553 (1954). Hence they will not enforce rights created by those rules, but only civil or political rights having their origin elsewhere. Terrell v. Palomino Horse Breeders of America, 414 N.E.2d *1329332, 335 (Ind.App.1980), creates an exception, dubious in light of Givens, for rules requiring due process. Ryan Crane was accorded due process. Terrell by the way is the only case cited in the majority opinion in which the decision of an association was invalidated.
If Indiana courts will not enforce an association’s internal rules, neither will they second-guess its interpretation and application of its rules, as this court does today. It is true that in Kriss v. Brown, 180 Ind.App. 594, 608-09, 390 N.E.2d 193, 202 (1979), the court reviewed a decision of the Indiana High School Athletic Association on eligibility to determine whether the Association had acted arbitrarily and capriciously. But it did not consider whether this was the correct standard. It had no occasion to do so, since it was plain that the decision was not arbitrary or capricious, any more than it was here. Kriss v. Brown also holds that a student cannot complain of administrative deficiencies for which he shared responsibility either by not objecting or by failing to claim his procedural rights. 180 Ind.App. at 609, 390 N.E.2d at 202, and nn. 5-6. No more should Ryan Crane be allowed to complain about the executive committee’s failure to issue an opinion.
I am worried by what this decision may portend for the future. By leaving the district judge’s bizarre constitutional ruling undisturbed, by failing to reaffirm Ha-meetman or even cite Jobst, and by reaching out to strike down the Association’s action on a most tenuous state ground, the decision today may signal a willingness on the part of some members of this court to constitute the court an arbiter of purely local disputes related, however remotely, to family status. I do not relish such a role. I think it carries us well beyond our constitutional mandate.
I would reverse the decision of the district court with instructions to enter judgment for the defendant.