The Plymouth High School Baseball Boosters in Canton, Mich., were stunned by a US Department of Education decision under its Title IX authority requiring the school to take down improvements made to bleachers at the baseball field, The Huffington Post reports. The school has complied.
The baseball booster club raised funds over six years to change the configuration of their bleachers because spectators had trouble seeing the playing field. The money was raised from donors, and the new bleachers were installed by volunteers. The department said the school had not made similar improvements to bleachers at the girls’ softball field, which is next to the baseball field.
However, the girls’ softball boosters never mentioned bleacher improvements as a priority, and they never raised any money for that purpose. In addition, no public money was available to make improvements to the softball bleachers.
In the community, there’s a small outrage, with people accusing the federal government of telling a local booster club how they can or can’t spend their money. Title IX is not being violated here, they say, since girls have the same opportunities as boys at Plymouth to participate in like sports, baseball and softball.
People who object to the federal decision also point out that the improvements were made to areas for the fans, not the students. They don’t see how improvements that did not increase the opportunities for either boys or girls can be viewed as creating an inequity.
But their argument may be missing the point of Title IX. In a case in Batavia, N.Y., last year, three girls’ softball players sued the school, claiming their softball field was unequal in quality to the stadium where the boys played baseball. The boys used a Minor League ball park, while the girls just had the field on campus. In the New York case, the district agreed to upgrade the softball facilities.