Maine governing body facing discrimination lawsuit

There's nothing new about gender discrimination lawsuits in high school sports. But how about when it concerns alleged discrimination against the boys?

The governing body for the state of Maine, the Maine Principals' Association, is facing a lawsuit after prohibiting three boys hockey players from the now-defunct Deering High program to join the team at Portland.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Cumberland County Superior Court, came after the MPA  had ruled to allow girls players from Deering to play for Portland this winter. Deering dropped both its boys and girls varsity hockey programs following the 2010-11 season due to declining participation numbers.

"If the MPA had denied the request of waivers for both (boys and girls), this wouldn't be happening," Paul Greene, a lawyer with the Portland firm of Preti Flahertym, told Steve Solloway of the Portland Press Herald.

The MPA maintains a rule prohibiting the formation of a cooperative team when the combined enrollment of the two schools in question is larger than any one school in the entire state. It also does not typically allow for cooperation formations if both schools have sponsored separate teams within the last two years.

MPA executive director Dick Durost told the newspaper that the intent of its cooperative guides is not "to salvage established teams  that have declined in popularity due to decreased student interest or internal programmatic issues. It was also not intended to allow schools to create more highly competitive teams by pooling athletic talent."

At the same time, Durost said the girls co-op between Portland and Deering was allowed to form to help the sport grow in the state of Maine. Boys hockey teams presently out-number girls teams by 3-to-1 in the MPA.

Jim Stout is the CBS MaxPreps Media Manager for the Eastern U.S. He may be reached at 845-367-2864 or at jim.stout@cbsinteractive.com.