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Civil Rights — equal protection

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//February 24, 2014//

Civil Rights — equal protection

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//February 24, 2014//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — equal protection

Where a high school boys’ basketball team requires players to have short hair, and the school’s girls’ team does not, a boy who wants to wear his hair long is entitled to summary judgment on his claim that the school discriminated against him.

“What we have before us is a policy that draws an explicit distinction between male and female athletes and imposes a burden on male athletes alone, and a limited record that does not supply a legally sufficient justification for the sex-based classification. We know that there is a rule prohibiting both male and female athletes at the junior high school from wearing hairstyles that might in some way interfere with their vision or pose some other type of problem; we have assumed that the same rule applies to high school athletes of both sexes. But there is no suggestion that A.H. wishes to wear his hair in an extreme fashion, let alone that hair worn over a boy’s ears or collar or eyebrows is invariably problematic. The record also tells us that Coach Meyer offered two reasons for the policy: promoting team unity, by having team members wear their hair in a uniform length, and projecting a ‘clean-cut’ image. We may assume that the hair-length rule is consistent with these reasons and that both reasons are legitimate grounds for grooming standards that apply to interscholastic athletes. What is noteworthy, for purposes of the Haydens’ equal protection claim, is that the interests in team unity and projecting a favorable image are not unique to male interscholastic teams, and yet, so far as the record reveals, those interests are articulated and pursued solely with respect to members of the boys basketball team (and baseball team, assuming that the hair-length rule is applied to that team for the same reasons). If there is an argument that the goals of team unity and a ‘clean-cut’ image are served through comparable, albeit different, grooming standards for female athletes, it has neither been advanced nor supported in this case. And the fact that other boys teams are not subject to a hair-length policy casts doubt on whether such an argument could be made.”

Affirmed in part, and Reversed in part.

13-1757 Hayden v. Greensburg Community School Corp.

 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Young, J., Rovner, J.

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