Suit's real winners are the athletes

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
July 30, 1998

Suit's real winners are the athletes

By Richard Tijerina, Staff Writer

HURST - We won.
No, we did.
Did not
Did too.

All legal posturing aside, there were all sorts of winners that emerged from the school board chambers Tuesday night at Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District building. Faced with a Title IX lawsuit, the school district did the best thing it could - the only thing it could, really - it complied.

"The timetables [in the lawsuit] match all the timetables we had already planned on," said Sarah Donch, the district's attorney. "This is something the district already had under way."

Point, H-E-B.

"They agreed to all our demands," Julie E. Johnson said last week. As attorney for the eight families who filed the suit, she came out - at least based on final results - on top. "They weren't enforcing their own plan. The suit has forced them to respond to it now, rather than sometime in the future."

Point, families.

Aren't we missing the point here?

The real winners are not the school board trustees, who approved the settlement plan Tuesday and thus set the wheels of Title IX compliance and improved equality for girls in the H-E-B district. Nor are the real winners the lawyers who brokered the settlement, either Johnson who guided the suit to fruition or Donch, who skillfully helped the school district save face.

The real winners are the girls. Not just the eight female junior high and high school students who started the change, along with their families, by starting the suit, but all the girls to follow who will benefit from the district's decision. We do not know who the girls in the lawsuit are. Part of the settlement was that they remain anonymous. It doesn't matter whether they live next door to you, or if they choose to play athletics ever again.

What does matter is because of these nameless, faceless eight, we are not far away from change.

They began by charging that the school district has not provided equal facilities, coaching staff, equipment and supplies for girls' athletics as it does for boys. That is a violation of the federal Title IX law, which can draw a penalty that includes a loss of federal funding.

In junior high football, they charged, players are provided uniforms, pads, helmets, two pairs of cleats, socks, mouthpieces, athletic supporters, laundry service, names on uniforms and placards if they make the playoffs. Girls, meanwhile, must provide their own equipment except for school-provided jerseys, they said.

The district knew this was coming. It was told a year ago by one of its own committees that changes would have to be made to meet federal requirements. Johnson met with the district before the suit was filed.

Now, months after the courts became involved, here we are. We have changes coming. The district now has a three-year timetable for creating equal sports facilities and opportunities for boys and girls. The district's two high schools, L.D. Bell and Trinity, will soon hire female athletic coordinators to oversee girls' athletics.

Girls just wanting their fair shot will benefit from Title IX reform. It has been around for almost 30 years, but we are just now starting to feel it. Title IX has affected a countless universities and high school districts across the country.

The eight girls and their families score for raising the issue in the first place. The school district scores for coming up with the right answer.

But we all score because of both.

That's the point.