The law in question only prohibits biological males from participating in female sports. It does not prohibit females from joining boys teams. Compare and contrast sections “B” and “C”:
B. Athletic teams or sports designated for “females”, “women” or “girls” may not be open to students of the male sex.
C. This section does not restrict the eligibility of any student to participate in any interscholastic or intramural athletic team or sport designated as being for “males”, “men” or “boys” or designated as “coed” or “mixed”.
I also thought this was pretty interesting:
E. Any student who is deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffers any direct or indirect harm as a result of a school knowingly violating this section has a private cause of action for injunctive relief, damages and any other relief available under law against the school.
AFAIK, when a law says something like “This section does not [do something]” It’s usually because some other law explicitly prohibits [something]. Without such language, the two laws could be seen as conflicting.
I think excluding girls from boys teams violates Title IX.
Title IX requires gender equity in access and spending. It doesn’t strictly require women to access men’s sports, but it does require the school fully fund/admit women to equivalent in the abstract.
So, for instance, if you spend $100k/year on the boys-only football program, you need $100k dedicated to a girl accessible sport (typically volleyball or softball or soccer).
This is not at all accurate. If a girl wants to play a sport for which there is a boys team but not girls team, she must be allowed to try out and participate on the same basis as the boys (a boys team is really an “everyone” team - this actually applies beyond schools and Title IX as no professional sports league in the US actually bars women from competing). Only girls/women’s teams get to set restrictions with respect to sex/gender. For Title IX, this is a wildly discriminatory interpretation of a low that bans discrimination, but it’s the one that has been in use for years.
And Title IX doesn’t require equal funding, but something much more nebulous about impact and opportunity that makes the whole thing kind of intentionally wishy washy so anyone they need to be can not be in compliance. To make it even more impossible to actually comply, questions of funding and opportunity are not limited to what the school itself supplies, so for example anything donated by parents or volunteers (such as the work of a booster club) also counts. So for example, if you cut funding to a boys team and parents more than make up the shortfall in donations and fundraising, it’s entirely possible based on that you might have to cut it further. Related, this kind of thing is why less popular boys sports are prone to being cut at the drop of a hat - football and sometimes boys basketball make money, most other sports teams lose money so the school is incentivized not to make cuts from King Football or Prince Basketball, but they have to target equal opportunity and impact between boys and girls athletic spending which means they spend what they’re willing to have as a cost on girls teams and cut whatever boys teams they need to cut to avoid cutting into the football budget, because the football budget has an ROI.
FAQ: Does Title IX require that 50 percent of our athletic budget be spent on girls programs and 50 percent be spent on our boys programs?
Answer: No. The key to allocating financial resources under Title IX is the overall impact of expenditures – does your school’s allocation of financial resources provide equivalence of athletics opportunities and benefits to boys and girls. Although this will result, in most cases, in an approximate 50-50 budgetary allocation, Title IX does not require a strictly proportional division of dollars.
FAQ: Our school offers soccer for boys, but not for girls. Does Title IX require that we allow girls to play on the boys team?
Answer: Title IX requires that in sports where a girls team is not offered, girls must be allowed to try out for the boys team and participate on the same basis as boys. This does not mean that a girl automatically gets to be on the team. She has to try out and make the team on the same basis as any boy would have to try out and make the team. She can also be cut from the team, but only on the same basis as a boy could be cut from the team – for an objectively verifiable lack of ability or a lack of size, strength, skill and experience making participation unsafe.
FAQ: Our school offers volleyball for girls, but not for boys. Does Title IX require that we allow boys to play on the girls team?
Answer: No. Although there have been a few, isolated lawsuits where boys have obtained injunctions to allow them to participate on a girls team for which their schools offered no same-sport equivalent for boys, the courts generally rule that the purpose of Title IX is to remedy past inequities of athletics opportunity for the historically under-represented gender – females – and that if boys are allowed to participate on girls teams, they will because of height, weight and strength advantages come to dominate the membership of those teams, and thereby decrease the competitive opportunities for women. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, the courts have not permitted boys to play on girls teams, even if there is not a same-sport boys team.
If a girl wants to play a sport for which there is a boys team but not girls team, she must be allowed to try out and participate on the same basis as the boys
Sure. And occasionally you get a girl to qualify. Sarah Fuller as the place kicker for Vanderbilt Commodores, for instance.
But the disparity in builds - particularly in a high contact sport like football - makes women qualifying virtually impossible.
So for example, if you cut funding to a boys team and parents more than make up the shortfall in donations and fundraising, it’s entirely possible based on that you might have to cut it further.
This was in response to early efforts to effectively privatize student athletics and freeze women’s sports out.
I’m sure it’s a matter of time before our current patriarchy fetish SCOTUS to reverse this out. But for the time being, you can’t just find a few mega-donors to create a “Private Men’s Club” on a public campus. What is ultimately being measured is access, which does get nebulous, but is necessarily the case when so many misogynists are intent on digging out loopholes to render Title XI toothless.
The law in question only prohibits biological males from participating in female sports. It does not prohibit females from joining boys teams.
There’s a simple reason for that - the second sentence is required under current interpretations of Title IX, while the first is not. The argument for that is about girl’s sports being a sort of protected space for girls, so it’s OK to bar non-girls (however your jurisdiction chooses to define that) from girls sports, but “boys” sports are actually for everyone who can compete.
The problem is the Trump administration is pushing for this. They’re saying schools can only allow students to play on teams based on their assigned gender at birth. The federal government is using coercion to force states to comply
There is no specific law to follow, since it’s just based on the whims of the federal government. The punishment is withholding funding. There is to judge, jury, or courts of any kind involved. Simply the federal government refusing to release funding if they dislike what states are doing. The AZ law is comparatively toothless
The effect of this is the same as it always is with these types of capricious authoritarian governments: A chilling effect. Actors are overly cautious to avoid drawing the wrath of the powerful central government – Trump in this case
The principal really needs to read the law. This school is so fucked.
https://codes.findlaw.com/az/title-15-education/az-rev-st-sect-15-120-02/
The law in question only prohibits biological males from participating in female sports. It does not prohibit females from joining boys teams. Compare and contrast sections “B” and “C”:
I also thought this was pretty interesting:
This is literally one of these first things they teach in a (at least NY public high schools) coaching course.
AFAIK, when a law says something like “This section does not [do something]” It’s usually because some other law explicitly prohibits [something]. Without such language, the two laws could be seen as conflicting.
I think excluding girls from boys teams violates Title IX.
Title IX requires gender equity in access and spending. It doesn’t strictly require women to access men’s sports, but it does require the school fully fund/admit women to equivalent in the abstract.
So, for instance, if you spend $100k/year on the boys-only football program, you need $100k dedicated to a girl accessible sport (typically volleyball or softball or soccer).
This is not at all accurate. If a girl wants to play a sport for which there is a boys team but not girls team, she must be allowed to try out and participate on the same basis as the boys (a boys team is really an “everyone” team - this actually applies beyond schools and Title IX as no professional sports league in the US actually bars women from competing). Only girls/women’s teams get to set restrictions with respect to sex/gender. For Title IX, this is a wildly discriminatory interpretation of a low that bans discrimination, but it’s the one that has been in use for years.
And Title IX doesn’t require equal funding, but something much more nebulous about impact and opportunity that makes the whole thing kind of intentionally wishy washy so anyone they need to be can not be in compliance. To make it even more impossible to actually comply, questions of funding and opportunity are not limited to what the school itself supplies, so for example anything donated by parents or volunteers (such as the work of a booster club) also counts. So for example, if you cut funding to a boys team and parents more than make up the shortfall in donations and fundraising, it’s entirely possible based on that you might have to cut it further. Related, this kind of thing is why less popular boys sports are prone to being cut at the drop of a hat - football and sometimes boys basketball make money, most other sports teams lose money so the school is incentivized not to make cuts from King Football or Prince Basketball, but they have to target equal opportunity and impact between boys and girls athletic spending which means they spend what they’re willing to have as a cost on girls teams and cut whatever boys teams they need to cut to avoid cutting into the football budget, because the football budget has an ROI.
Per NFHS website (https://nfhs.org/stories/title-ix-compliance-part-iv-frequently-asked-questions):
Sure. And occasionally you get a girl to qualify. Sarah Fuller as the place kicker for Vanderbilt Commodores, for instance.
But the disparity in builds - particularly in a high contact sport like football - makes women qualifying virtually impossible.
This was in response to early efforts to effectively privatize student athletics and freeze women’s sports out.
I’m sure it’s a matter of time before our current patriarchy fetish SCOTUS to reverse this out. But for the time being, you can’t just find a few mega-donors to create a “Private Men’s Club” on a public campus. What is ultimately being measured is access, which does get nebulous, but is necessarily the case when so many misogynists are intent on digging out loopholes to render Title XI toothless.
There’s a simple reason for that - the second sentence is required under current interpretations of Title IX, while the first is not. The argument for that is about girl’s sports being a sort of protected space for girls, so it’s OK to bar non-girls (however your jurisdiction chooses to define that) from girls sports, but “boys” sports are actually for everyone who can compete.
The problem is the Trump administration is pushing for this. They’re saying schools can only allow students to play on teams based on their assigned gender at birth. The federal government is using coercion to force states to comply
There is no specific law to follow, since it’s just based on the whims of the federal government. The punishment is withholding funding. There is to judge, jury, or courts of any kind involved. Simply the federal government refusing to release funding if they dislike what states are doing. The AZ law is comparatively toothless
The effect of this is the same as it always is with these types of capricious authoritarian governments: A chilling effect. Actors are overly cautious to avoid drawing the wrath of the powerful central government – Trump in this case