Yesterday, the 7th Circuit issued an opinion in the case of Hayden v. Greensburg Community School (pdf) concerning a complaint over a hair length rule imposed by a boys basketball coach at Greensburg Junior High.
It’s tough to draw a lot of long term conclusions from this case since it was in a sort of odd procedural posture where the parties had stipulated to facts and asked the court to enter judgment one way or another based on those stipulated facts. The record didn’t have a lot of information about what, if any, burdens were imposed on the girls basketball team. If there had been a showing that the burdens imposed on girls were comparable, even if different, the decision apparently might have been different.
But, Judges Rovner and Easterbrook reversed the District Court judge and found that the facts did support an equal protection claim based on the fact that boys were required to cut their hair short and girls had no apparent hair length rule:
This is a case of disparate treatment rather than disparate impact; the hair-length policy, being applicable only to boys teams, draws an explicit gender line. The intent to treat boys differently from girls is therefore evident from the one-sided nature of the policy.
. . .
The hair-length policy applies only to male athletes, and there is no facially apparent reason why that should be so. Girls playing interscholastic basketball have the same need as boys do to keep their hair out of their eyes, to subordinate individuality to team unity, and to project a positive image. Why, then, must only members of the boys
team wear their hair short?
Update Bob Cook, writing at Forbes, has an article with a lot more detail about the background of this case.
Assuming that the rule did, in fact, come from the coach and not the school administration, the obvious answer seems to be “because the boys’ basketball coach can’t make rules for the girls’ team.” What if the teams have different practice schedules, or even different practice content? What if the JV team didn’t have this requirement? It seems like a stretch to claim discrimination because different coaches have different rules. But as Doug noted, the missing facts make it difficult to rule otherwise.
What’s the lawsuit going to be when the kid doesn’t play. Can the courts rule that the kid must get X number of minutes of playing time? Because if I’m coaching it’s simple “Kid, you can keep your hair, but it won’t ever be in the game.”
I won’t be so self-promotional as to link to my own blog post on the subject (though hint, hint you find it if you click my name). But, as often happens with these things, it’s about more than just hair. It also is connected, in a way, to a particularly infamous suicide that accelerated the discussion of bullying in school.
Good stuff. I added an update with a link to your post.
Thanks, Doug. I love Rovner’s line about the circuit judges possibly not conforming to the coach’s hair rule. Easterbrook is OK on the top (because he has no hair), but not on the sides.
I also enjoy the irony here…if he toughs it out and cuts his hair he has a state title on his resume with a likely second state title this year.