Intrepid reporter Betty Brink just wired in this report from somewhere in the Himalayas (actually, from Everman):
The Fort Worth Independent School District has dodged another discrimination bullet. The district found out yesterday that it had been cleared by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights of a complaint of discrimination filed in October by a pregnant volleyball player.
The teenager said district policy that requires student athletes to get a medical clearance when their physical or medical conditions changed was a violation of Title IX, the law forbidding discrimination against females in public school athletics.
She claimed the district discriminated against her when it asked her to provide medical records different from other student athletes, and she described being excluded from the team because of her pregnancy.
Well, carrying a baby did put her in a slightly different category of “medical conditions” than your regular student athlete. The Office of Civil Rights found “insufficient evidence to support the young woman’s complaint.”
“I am truly grateful that this case has been brought to a conclusion,” Superintendent Melody Johnson wrote in a press release, “and that the findings showed what we knew all along.” That the teenager was pregnant, maybe?
Dang, Jeff, I wish it was the Himalayas. No, more like Hawaii. Everman isn’t exactly the Eden of the planet. Thanks for the post. Nice to have a colleague willing to go the extra mile. B