A little lightweight before I get heavy...

Alright. So I'm driving home from Maryland, a day later than I meant to be, mind you... so my head is already spinning. I'm flipping through the crappy radio options when a talk show catches my attention. Why? I have no idea. But I checked in for a little bit. Found myself disturbed - and then looked up the news article I included below.... (I shortened it for space's sake)

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - Page updated at 01:03 p.m.
Parents taking issue with forfeits when boys don't join girls on mat
By Linda Shaw - Seattle Times staff reporter


Girls who wrestled for several Puget Sound-area middle schools this year easily won their matches against boys from two private schools. The girls stepped onto the mat. Their opponents from Tacoma Baptist and Cascade Christian stayed in their seats. The referee then raised the girls' hands to signal they'd won by forfeit.

But the easy victories didn't sit well with the girls, including Meaghan Connors, a seventh-grader at McMurray Middle School on Vashon Island. Her father, Jerry, is prepared to go to court over what he considers a clear case of sex discrimination. For years, schools in the Rainier Valley League, including McMurray, have honored the ability of the two private schools to forfeit matches rather than have a boy wrestle one of the handful of girls on the public-school teams.

League President Dan Petersen said it was the same as honoring desires of other religious schools not to compete on certain days.
He noted that wrestling rules allow a forfeit for any reason...At Cascade Christian in Puyallup, Superintendent Don Johnson said the school "does not want to put our young men in a situation where they would be inappropriately touching a young lady."

Connors, however, believes the forfeit rule shouldn't be used to discriminate against girls, including his daughter, one of a half-dozen girls on teams in the league, drawn from schools in King, Pierce and Mason counties.

Connors, a former Episcopal president and one-time pastoral assistant for social justice at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, believes religion should play a role in public life. "But there's a limit," he said.

"If my religion says that once a year on a full moon, I had to get into a hit-and-run accident, I think the cops would take exception to that," he said. "That's an extreme example, but if you come into the public domain, you can't develop a policy that discriminates against people."

He's filed a complaint alleging the Vashon Island School District is violating Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools, by allowing the policies to exist. If the policies aren't changed, he says, he'll make a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and, if necessary, file a lawsuit...

...girls don't always get a warm welcome. Meaghan Connors and teammate Sylvie Shiosaki, 13, said they sometimes get taunted at matches, as do the boys who wrestle against them.

Nevertheless, girls' participation in wrestling is growing...What's happening now in the Rainier Valley League, however, is not as clear cut, Lees said. Wrestling rules allow for forfeits. Girls get the points for the win. Private schools don't have to adhere to Title IX.

Considering the message But Nancy Hogshead-Makar, legal adviser for the Women's Sports Foundation and a gold medalist in swimming at the 1984 Olympics, said the question is whether the WIAA, an organization that includes public and private schools, is a public entity... it can't allow policies that discriminate against girls, she said. Girls are harmed when they win by forfeit, she added, because they lose out on the experience gained in competition, which is at the heart of what sports is about. And it sends the message, she said, that there's something wrong with them.

"What if, for religious reasons, people said they were not going to wrestle African Americans, or wrestle people of different religions?" she asked. "When you put it in those terms, you can see how the person who is not able to compete is being harmed."
The Christian schools say little about the issue.

Meaghan Connors didn't have to endure any forfeits herself this year. As a seventh-grader, she wasn't McMurray's best wrestler in her weight class, so she wasn't on the varsity squad, the only one that officially competes at the middle-school level. Still, she came home upset when Shiosaki got forfeits. She told her father she felt degraded, like an "object of lust."

Shiosaki said three of her 11 matches this year were forfeits from boys at the two schools, significantly shortening her season. That's what concerns her mother, Lonnie, who's supporting Jerry Connors' efforts. The lack of experience handicaps the girls when they go to state tournaments or even the state's all-girls exhibition tournament, she said...

The WIAA has not been asked for its guidance, and for now, it's a league matter, Colbrese said. Still, he said, he's looking into it. To him, there are conflicts among the freedom of religion, the freedom from discrimination and the wrestling rule that allows forfeits. "I'm not sure where you come out with all those things mixed in," he said. Jerry Connors, however, maintains private schools should adhere by public rules when they're competing against public schools in public facilities. "My daughter's rights," he said, "are not going to be bargained away for any reason."

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

My Thoughts...
1) I'm so glad this Conners guy works(ed?) for a church and doesn't get it. Was the really the best analogy he could make?? Somehow I don't think the two connect at all. "...Religion should play a role in public life. 'But there's a limit.'" Oh really? That's an interesting take.
2) You can't MAKE anyone do something they don't want to. And, when did respect, decency, and chivalry become not just dated but bad??!!
3) So the girl's record is tarnished with forfeits (not real wins). If a middle school boy beats a girl - he becomes the boy that beats up girls. And if a middle school boy loses to a girl - he becomes the boy that got beat up by a girl... Hmmm, less matches actually battled or a scarring reputation in the the identity formative years??
4) Do these people know what disrimination means?? The Christian Schools aren't fighting to take away the girls' rights to wrestle, they just don't want to put their boys in that awkward situation. They are teaching their boys how to carry themselves with a lady - and not even chancing the embarassment of a physiological reaction to mashing and writhing against a girl's body.
5) On the radio show some coach was saying how having girls on the boys wrestling team has made the boys shape up. The bad language is kept to a minimum. And the boys work harder because they "will not be shown up by the girls". That sounds beneficial and all... but a lot more problematic to me. If that's how they think they need to act in front of girls - then maybe they should be taught that's how they need to act in front of anyone. Be who you are everywhere you are boys.

I gotta say I'm disappointed. I'm all for equal opportunity - dude, I'm a girl. But, um, in an individual FULL contact sport - in Flippin' Middle School - if you want to be tough enough to participate - you gotta be tough enough to eat a forfeit.