Any student at Winamac Community Middle School who wanted to join the football team was allowed to play „ unless that student was a girl. So when "C.B.," a seventh grader at the school, and her Dad asked the principal and the athletic director if she could join the previously all-male football team, she was turned away.
Gender is not a valid excuse for keeping women out of previously all-male sports.
The school's decision not to allow C.B. to try out for the football team solely because of her gender violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After the ACLU of Indiana filed the case in District Court, CB v. Eastern Pulaski School Corp., the school changed its policy. Now that the lawsuit has been dismissed, C.B. _ and other girls _ are allowed to play with the team.
All people have equal rights under the law, whether they are male, female, transgendered, or youth. The ACLU of Indiana will continue to advocate and bring cases to trial on behalf of people who feel their rights have been violated.
