Parents, as next of friend of female students of Midlothian Public School District, filed suit against the school district under Title IX of the Education Amendment, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, on April 18, 2001 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The plaintiffs alleged that the school district had violated Title IX by discriminating against female students as to the sports and opportunities offered. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants discriminated against female students in the funding of athletics, equipment and supplies, travel and/or meals, opportunity to receive qualified coaching, assignment and/or compensation of coaches, provision of locker rooms and facilities for practice and competition, and the provision of training facilities and services. Plaintiffs sought class certification for all female students in the Midlothian School District.

On May 21, 2002, Judge Sam Lindsay held that plaintiffs lacked standing to assert effective accommodation claims. Because the plaintiffs already participated in interscholastic athletics, they could not demonstrate an "injury in fact" with respect to effective accommodations. The court held that plaintiffs did have standing to pursue their unequal treatment claims. In the same opinion, the court certified the class of female students at Midlothian schools.

On September 11, 2002, the court entered a consent decree, absent any admission of wrong-doing by the defendants, based on a joint stipulation of the parties. Among other things, the parties agreed that the school district would continue to encourage participation in school-sponsored sports via notification to all students of sports offered, maintain accurate accounting records of expenditures for male and female sports, maintain a commitment to providing off-season training to all female sports on a basis equivalent with that provided for male sports, publish a policy in the school handbook of the district's policy of equal treatment for male and female athletes, provide coach to athlete ratios for female sports equal to that of male sports, and avoid cancellation of games for gender reasons. The district also agreed to provide summer camps for female sports, provide trainers to female athletes, provide comparable athletic facilities for male and female students in facilities built after January 1, 2002, and to provide spectator facilities for the softball competition field equivalent to those of the baseball field.

The case was dismissed with prejudice on January 22, 2003.



Carlyn Williams - 02/02/2014


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