Court Opinion

ID: 9656319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:46:32.354911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:31.665641
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent from the holding in Case No. 51940.
Minn.Stat. § 126.21, subd. 5 (1980), permitting athletic competition or tournaments to be assigned to seasons that are separate on the basis of sex, allows a classification based solely upon gender and thus triggers review under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971). That clause guarantees that “[n]o state shall * * * deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In scheduling separate but equal seasons of play and tournaments in tennis and swimming for its member schools, the League acts under the color of state law. See Brenden v. Independent School 742, 477 F.2d 1292, 1295 (8th Cir. 1973). Therefore, the court must carefully scrutinize this gender-based classification.
The United States Supreme Court has determined that “classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.” Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197, 97 S.Ct. 451, 456, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976). Administrative ease and convenience are not sufficiently important objectives to justify gender-based classifications. Id. at 198, 97 S.Ct. at 457.
The appellant argues, and the majority concurs in the argument, that coeducational athletic programs are preferable to sex-segregated programs. The majority specifically does not hold that it would be constitutionally permissible to have separate seasons where adequate facilities are available. The decision turns on the adequacy of the facilities.
The majority accepts the League’s contention that the boys’ and girls’ swimming and tennis tournaments must be scheduled separately because many of its member schools do not have enough pools and tennis courts to accommodate in one season all the boys and girls who wish to participate in those sports. Maximum participation by both girls and boys in swimming and tennis *404is an important objective. The League has not demonstrated, however, that scheduling separate seasons is the only feasible way to achieve that objective. It was clear from the evidence that adequacy of facilities, as far as seasonal practice and play are concerned, is no problem in out-state schools and, for swimming in particular, is no problem in the metropolitan area. Iron Range schools participated in the earlier, 1924-1942, period of swimming and operated their boys’ and girls’ programs in the same season. Even in the metropolitan area, St. Paul athletic director Wayne Gilliland reluctantly admitted, “I guess I always would believe that swimming probably was a possibility * * * because we do have the pools.” Availability of tennis courts is considered by Dr. James Phillips, an assistant superintendent, to be an administrative problem which is solvable by leasing courts if necessary. Facilities management is also crucial. Essentially the same court facilities were used by the St. Paul Highland Park coach to handle 12 to 15 tennis players and by the St. Paul Johnson coach to handle 36 to 50 tennis players. It appears that, even as far as the boys are concerned, participation is limited more by lack of assistant coaches than by lack of ability to schedule existing facilities to accommodate more participants.
Further, the League has not demonstrated that the division of swimming and tennis tournaments by gender is substantially related to its objective of assuring the availability of tennis and swimming to as many students as possible or necessitated by inadequate facilities. Jean Freeman, A. A. U. coach and head coach of the women’s swimming team at the University of Minnesota, who had extensive experience in conducting coed meets, gave detailed proposals for running a coed swimming tournament. A state coed tennis tournament is also feasible. The number of courts and time needed for such a tournament can be kept the same by playing more rounds outstate at the regional level before players advance to the state level. Under the separate-season format, only one round is played outstate. The League does have the ability to make such adjustments and changes. As appellant notes, the League completely changed the format of its tennis tournaments when it divided schools into A and AA classes. This change doubled the size of the tournaments and was made expressly to increase participation.
Segregation by gender has an adverse effect on girls’ tennis and swimming. Because boys’ tennis has traditionally been scheduled in the spring, girls’ tennis is relegated to the fall season. The results are that girls must begin their tennis season before the school year begins and that their season may be cut short by early winter weather. The boys do not suffer these disadvantages. New, less-experienced coaches are also more likely to be assigned to the girls’ teams. According to statistics supplied by the Athletic Department of the St. Paul Public Schools, the average experience of coaches assigned to boys is 8.1 years; the average experience of coaches assigned to girls is 4.5 years.
More importantly, segregation by gender has long-term adverse effects. Experts such as psychologist Dorothy Loeffler and Nina Rothchild, executive director of the Council on the Economic Status of Women, testified at trial that sex segregation in athletic programs contributes materially to the failure of both men and women to work together in career situations, as well as to occupational sex segregation and the lower economic status of women. Sex bias does exist in the schools and, according to Dr. Phillips, coed athletic activities serve to reduce this bias.
Schools with adequate facilities or the will to use their facilities and resources creatively who wish to reduce sex bias by providing coeducation in swimming and tennis will be unable to do so. They are forced into separate seasons by the League’s sex-based assignment of separate seasons. This classification serves no important governmental interest on a statewide basis and cannot be upheld under the Craig v. Boren constitutional standard relating to gender-based discrimination.
I would reverse.