Court Opinion

ID: 9848296
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:16:00.272745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:11.745701
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion, because in my view the OSAA rule which penalizes a student’s intradistrict transfer from a private school to a public school by barring the student from competitive athletics for a year produces considerably more than what the majority terms "unfortunate results.” I believe it violates Art I, § 20 of the Oregon Constitution.
The majority opinion fails to deal adequately with the fact that within the rule’s "administrative transfer” exception, which mandates OSAA deferral to the transfer of students within a multi-school district by the school administration without loss of athletic eligibility, there are two significantly different types of transfers. The first is the kind of nonvoluntary transfer of numbers of students to achieve racial balance or other district-wide goals. The record indicates, however, that there is a second type of administrative transfer, which is student -initiated, and in which the district, not OSAA, has the authority to decide whether the move is for "athletic purposes” and whether the student transferring should forfeit athletic eligibility. Thus, students moving for non-athletic purposes from one public school to another within the same geographic district have an administrative level at the school itself in which to plead their case regarding an intradistrict transfer, but this opportunity is not available to students transferring to or from a private school within that district. Thus the rule, it seems to me, grants to public school students within larger districts a privilege which is denied students at private schools. The "boarding school exception,” which allows a similar administrative waiver for students transferring to or from boarding schools, applies to only a limited number of private schools. OSAA rules do provide for a "hardship exception;” however, that rule was of no help to these students.
*442Further, I do not agree that the infringement on plaintiffs’ rights is "minimal.” For a high school athlete, the loss of a year of local and regional competition and coaching instruction may mean the difference between playing on a varsity team and sitting on the sidelines. This, in turn, may make the difference in attracting the eye, and offer, of a college recruiter. For some, an athletic scholarship may make the difference between going to college or not. With the rising cost of a college education, loss of the opportunity to compete for athletic scholarships is not a minimal loss, even were I to accept the majority’s view that the loss of the ability to optimize one’s talents is not in itself a significant deprivation of plaintiffs’ rights. See Kite v. Marshall, 454 F Supp 1347, 1399 (SD Tex 1978), 494 F Supp 227, 232-33 (SD Tex 1980) 454 F Supp supra, 1347, 1349; Reed v. Nebraska School Activities Association, 341 F Supp 258, 262 (DC Neb 1972).
Because I do not find the intrusion to be minimal, I would demand something more than a "logical relationship” between the OSAA rule challenged and the goal it purports to achieve (preventing proselytizing and professionalism in high school athletics). I would require any such rule to be drafted more narrowly to protect, without penalty, Oregon students’ statutory and constitutional rights to attend a private school.1

 I concur in Whipple v. OSAA, 52 Or App 419, 629 P2d 384 (1981), because it does not raise the intradistrict question.