Wayland School Board gets legal opinion on Title IX complaint

The Wayland Board of Education Monday night went into closed session to consider a written legal opinion from its attorney about a Title IX civil rights complaint filed last week by former board member Shelly Salisbury Whitley.

Whitley last Tuesday filed her complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in Cleveland, charging the school district with not providing equal opportunities for the baseball team as it does the softball team. She contends the high school and middle school campus have five usable varsity softball fields, but only one varsity baseball field.

Several citizens appeared before the board at the work session to further explain the issue.

Varsity baseball coach Mike Doupe told board members, “By no means are we trying to take anything away from the softball program. They works their butts off (in taking care of their fields)… This is an inherited problem (for the current board, which has three new members). But the facilities aren’t equal and the situation is illegal (in violation of federal Title IX regulations).”

Doupe added that he and his baseball players, “would do everything to help” with such things as maintenance and repairs of a renovated field at the middle school.

Whitley herself told the board, “This is the fifth year we’ve pushed the baseball field to the back burner… I’ve been in your seats. I know this is tough.”

Whitley was chairwoman of the athletic committee while serving on the school board and what prompted her to take action, she said, was the lack of action in resolving a problem that also was illegal.

Matt Miner commented, “Don’t let the $200,000 price tag scare you,” insisting a lot of people in the community would be willing to help with the physical labor of getting a second baseball diamond ready.

Whitley, in prepared written remarks, said to the board:

“I was given this quote from a court case … Landow v. Brevard County: ‘The court is not unsympathetic to the fact that the School Board operates under a tight budget, and that the Board must select from a number of legitimate competing priorities in deciding how to spend tax dollars allocated to it. However, Title IX is the law; it must be followed.

‘Title IX is a portion of the United States Education Amendments of 1972, Public Law No. 92 -318, 86 Stat. 235 (June 23,1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688, co-authored and introduced by Senator Birch Bayh; it was renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002, after its House co-author and sponsor. It states (in part) that: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.’

“Title IX continues to be my sole focus here tonight and it was my reason for filing a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Tuesday March 17. My hope is that the board has become familiar with this law and the basis for this complaint. I am following many people before me that worked hard to correct the situation we have in our District in terms of the lack of baseball fields. Currently on the middle school/high school campus, we have five working softball fields compared to one working baseball field. For whatever reasons over the years, the district has chosen not to commit the resources to correct this problem. The district has been aware that they could be in violation of a federal law and continues to choose other projects to financially support.

“I am in a unique position in the fact that I recently served on the WUS School Board for four years and proudly was chair of the Athletic Committee duri.ng my tenure. This project has been discussed at length over the years, we have put a lot of time and money toward discussing and having plans drawn up to correct this problem. But the project continues to get pushed out into the future and other projects take precedence year after year.

“I am passionate about my home district and Wayland athletics. I believe strongly in the role athletics can play in the life of our student athletes and I have a strong desire to offer programs, coaching and facilities that we are proud of. It is my belief that the district should work toward the same level of exellence on the competition fields as we do in the classroom. Our athletic facilities are a reflection of our district priorites. I hope we start to take more pride in athletics.

“WUS works to educate our students and provides programing with a $24 million budget through federal and state funds. The district is very fortunate for the past few years to receive between $1.3 and $1.6 million annually in extra funding from the Gun Lake Casino. It is solely up to you seven board members how you choose to spend the extra money. It is a very hard job to sit on the board and select projects to support and how to allocate the money.

“But, the fact is, WUS does get more funding than any district in Allegan County with the help of the casino. WUS should not be broke and we should not be breaking the law to save money. It is all about choices for the school board… we make choices every day in terms of finances in our homes and the same thing happens on the school board.

“I ask that you support this project, support the male athletes, support the baseball program and above all else follow the law.”