“Captain, we have encountered the Sioux Falls School District.”
The Title IX case concerning gymnastics has been interesting to watch. While I don’t have a dog in the fight, I do think that gymnastics is a legitimate high school sport, AND they had a very good case against the Sioux Falls School District. In fact, I was surprised the District didn’t concede before the hearing.
But what I found interesting in the judge’s injunction is how he dropped the athletic director and superintendent from the suit citing SCOTUS has concluded that individuals are normally dropped from these suits and only the ‘entity’ itself can be sued.
This happened recently in the Bunker House case against the city. The defendant claimed he was racially discriminated against and the city (the mayor) requested that these claims of racial bias be removed from the case. I don’t know what was said, or even if the mayor said it, but if he did, that racial bias is ON him and should not have been dropped from the case UNLESS the mayor can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he never said or did anything to discriminate.
While our local Federal Judge has no control over SCOTUS rulings and essentially wants to follow their case law I find it interesting that SCOTUS thinks individuals can’t be held liable for making bad decisions on behalf of the entity. I would have sued not only the Super and Athletic Director, but the entire school board and any staff associated with this decision.
People are NOT naive, we know since the Pam Homan days that decisions come directly from the administration and they hog house the board into going along with their poor planning.
Sorry SCOTUS but entities like school districts don’t make decisions on their own, PEOPLE do, and when those people make decisions that clearly violate Federal statutes they deserve to be sued in their official capacities AND should be permanently removed from their positions (fired).
I’m not sure how you can keep someone around who clearly advised the school board to make this decision and violate Federal law. If these are the kind of decisions she is making, do we want her running the District?
I also take issue with the fact the school district felt it necessary to spend district money fighting this. They could have probably funded the program for the next 3 years for what it cost in lawyering. I certainly am NO expert on Title IX law, but this seemed like a pretty good case that the district was going to lose. Who is giving them legal advice? Oh that’s right, no one, just the ‘ENTITY’.