Speaker 1: Sydney Phillips is a twelve year old New Jersey girl
Speaker 1: who was a basketball all star at St. Teresa's Catholic School.
Speaker 1: Last fall, when there weren't enough girls to make up
Speaker 1: a team, Sydney asked if she could join the boys
Speaker 1: basketball team. The school said no, so Sydney's parents filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the school and the Archdiocese of Newark.
Speaker 1: The judge ruled that the seventh grader had no right
Speaker 1: to play basketball, so her parents appealed. But here's the
Speaker 1: twist in the story. The Archdiocese of Newark expelled both
Speaker 1: Sydney and her sister from St. Teresa's, signing a school
Speaker 1: policy that states legal action against the school will result
Speaker 1: in expulsion. The controversy caused the New York Liberty w
Speaker 1: NBA team to invite Sydney to practice with them at
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. Liberty player of Brittany Boyd told New
Speaker 1: Jersey dot Com why as an organization want to inspire her,
Speaker 1: Let her know that whatever you want to be, just
Speaker 1: being and do what you want to do, and don't
Speaker 1: let nobody ever tell you that you can't do anything.
Speaker 1: Our guest is Aaron Zuvis, director of the Center for
Speaker 1: Gender and Sexuality Studies at Western New England School of Law.
Speaker 1: Let's get right to the core question, Aaron, if there
Speaker 1: are no facilities for a girl to play a sport,
Speaker 1: should she be allowed to play on the boys team? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a more complicated question than just yes or no.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, if it were up to me, she
Speaker 1: would be allowed to play on the boys team, given
Speaker 1: the lack of of any alternative at the school. However, Um,
Speaker 1: she goes to a private school. She goes to a
Speaker 1: private religious school that has the opportunity to insulate itself
Speaker 1: from civil rights protections by foregoing federal funds, and assuming
Speaker 1: that it has UM, she doesn't have the right that
Speaker 1: a student who attends a public school or school that's
Speaker 1: receiving federal funds would have to UM to insist on
Speaker 1: that right to play and challenge the retaliatory expulsion that
Speaker 1: resulted from her case, Aaron. Doesn't matter whether Um, there's
Speaker 1: a religious basis for for having her not beyond the
Speaker 1: boys team, or is it a matter just as I
Speaker 1: think you were describing that they can't even get in
Speaker 1: the door UM for this lawsuit. If if the school
Speaker 1: doesn't accept federal funds. Yeah, I mean her her options
Speaker 1: for for litigating are really limited by the fact that
Speaker 1: she's challenging a decision by a private school. UM. The
Speaker 1: fact that it may be a religious objection, or or
Speaker 1: just or or any other objection. It doesn't really it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter for the purposes of litigation. Now, I
Speaker 1: should say that, UM, I understand her lawsuit to the
Speaker 1: one that the judge throughout, and that I believe she's
Speaker 1: appealing UM to be rooted in a claim under the
Speaker 1: terms of the State of New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't purport to know the ins and outs of
Speaker 1: the the requirements of the New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association,
Speaker 1: So I can't really a pine on the merits there.
Speaker 1: But I can say that, um, she's she's limited to
Speaker 1: those kinds of claims in the absence of any ability
Speaker 1: to h to bring a claim understay the Constitution's Equal
Speaker 1: Protection Clause UM and or Title nine by virtue of
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a private school. So the
Speaker 1: Phillips made an emergency appeal, as you said, and Appellate
Speaker 1: Court Judge Amy O'Connor issued a temporary order requiring the
Speaker 1: school to reinstate both girls pending a hearing set for
Speaker 1: later this week. Does that indicate the fact that the
Speaker 1: judge did that that there might be something to their case? Uh, well,
Speaker 1: certainly it does. I don't know the legal basis on
Speaker 1: which the the parents are challenging now the expulsion. I
Speaker 1: assume there must be a more broadly applicable state law. UM.
Speaker 1: I can say that Title nine, which doesn't apply in
Speaker 1: this case because it's a private school, has very robust
Speaker 1: protections for retaliation. UM. So this would be a much
Speaker 1: clearer case again if this were being considered in the
Speaker 1: context of public school. I mean, I just, I just
Speaker 1: think that today is actually a good day to uh
Speaker 1: to really uh bring up and emphasize these distinctions between
Speaker 1: public or private school. I mean, it happens to be
Speaker 1: just you know, minutes ago, it seems that we um
Speaker 1: and our Congress approved the nomination of an education secretary
Speaker 1: who seems to have privatization and a preference for private
Speaker 1: schools and private religious schools. Uh. And I think that
Speaker 1: this story is an important, um, you know, an important
Speaker 1: thing to have on the air today in light of
Speaker 1: that fact, because it really underscores, uh, what many people
Speaker 1: really lis is also at stake when we talk about
Speaker 1: the difference between private and public schools, and that's the
Speaker 1: absence of civil rights protection in large part um that
Speaker 1: a company's decisions to uh, you know, to shift our
Speaker 1: education opportunities from them from the public to the private realm,
Speaker 1: we could really be scaling back on opportunities that students
Speaker 1: have to uh to challenge discriminatory conditions, whether it be
Speaker 1: the discrimination of being excluded from athletic opportunities and the
Speaker 1: discrimination of being then excluded from school for having exercised
Speaker 1: your right or attempted to exercise your right to participate. Well, Aaron,
Speaker 1: you talked about federal funds as being kind of the
Speaker 1: foothold that that somebody could use to to sue a
Speaker 1: private school for a discrimination. Um, is that do private
Speaker 1: schools typically accept federal funds? What are we talking about
Speaker 1: there in terms of the types and amounts of federal
Speaker 1: funds that could be? Right? Well, so when we're talking
Speaker 1: about K through twelve education, primary and secondary education, Uh,
Speaker 1: most private schools operate outside the realm of federal funds,
Speaker 1: though there have been uh a handful of cases that
Speaker 1: I've come across where a private school is participating in,
Speaker 1: say a federally subsidized school lunch program or the other
Speaker 1: programs that might make certain UM either technology resources or
Speaker 1: other classroom resources available to private schools that might have
Speaker 1: a federal funding nexus attached. UM. But for the for
Speaker 1: the most part, that the the tendency is for private
Speaker 1: schools to operate without federal funds. It's a little different
Speaker 1: at the college level because, uh, for the most part,
Speaker 1: public and private schools alike will accept students who participate
Speaker 1: in federal student loan programs, and that becomes a nexus
Speaker 1: for Title nine's application there Aaron, the parents signed off
Speaker 1: on the school handbook policy that states parents who sue
Speaker 1: the school will be asked to remove their children, children
Speaker 1: will be expelled. Is that a big problem for them
Speaker 1: signing that? Uh? I would think so. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: as a matter of I mean, they've they have chosen
Speaker 1: to uh to to by by UM by this private
Speaker 1: school's rules. You know. I gotta say again, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been UM easy to find or reported what
Speaker 1: the legal grounds are that they are challenging now the expulsion.
Speaker 1: UH So, if they're making a claim that this is uh,
Speaker 1: that there's a specific New Jersey law that protects them. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have um an independent analysis of
Speaker 1: of that particular angle, UM, but I would certainly UM,
Speaker 1: I would certainly assume that over coming this obstacle of
Speaker 1: having sort of conceded their legal right to challenge any
Speaker 1: decision about their ability to continue to go to school,
Speaker 1: there would be the biggest obstacles that that lawsuit would
Speaker 1: have to overcome. Well, we will find out more later
Speaker 1: in the week when the judge. Here's the case, and
Speaker 1: certainly the controversy is not is not doing the school
Speaker 1: any good, but uh, it's it's doing the issue. I
Speaker 1: guess I'm good. Thank you so much for being on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. That's Aaron Bzovis, director of the Center for
Speaker 1: Gender and Sexuality Studies at Western New England School of Law.
Speaker 1: Greg there was so much online about her playing at
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden with the New York Liberty w NBA
Speaker 1: team that you have to wonder if that might have
Speaker 1: some kind of an impact on the archdiocese. Yeah, certainly
Speaker 1: will raise a visibility. You know, this is one of
Speaker 1: these cases where you look at it and I think
Speaker 1: most people would the reaction would be, Wow, that's gender discrimination,
Speaker 1: no question about it. But for the reasons that Aaron described,
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean legally you have a case against
Speaker 1: your your private Catholic school exactly. Coming up more on
Speaker 1: the school system, but this time in Nevada. New teachers
Speaker 1: in the state of Nevada will not have to know
Speaker 1: about the US Constitution or the state constitution. If Senate
Speaker 1: Bill twenty is past, should the state be lowering standards
Speaker 1: for teachers because of the shortage of teachers. I'm June
Speaker 1: Grasso with Greg Storf. This is Bloomberg