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.
Deering hockey has disbanded.
Photo by Michael Listner
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.
