MHSAA vows to spare kids while paying bills
Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2008 by Tom Wilson

Detroit News

Friday, February 22, 2008

MHSAA vows to spare kids while paying bills
Association has barely more money than $5.1M lawsuit's lawyers have submitted for their expenses.
Fred Girard / The Detroit News
The bill has arrived for the Michigan High School Athletic Association's decade-long fight against changing girls sports seasons, and, if upheld by a federal judge, it could be economically devastating.

Attorneys for a group of Grand Rapids moms who believed their daughters and all other girls in the state were being discriminated against say they worked 12,000 hours on the case and are owed $5.1 million.

The MHSAA already has plowed through a $2 million legal insurance policy fighting the case. Any further payments will come out of its coffers -- which are barely larger than the legal bill.

The MHSAA has a net worth of nearly $6 million, roughly half in investments and half in real estate, according to its most recent tax return, for the year ending July 2006.

MHSAA officials would not say where they'd get the money.

"If the need comes to pay a large settlement, we'll do the best we can," spokesman John Johnson said. "It will not come at the expense of the membership and it will not come at the expense of services to schools and to kids. We feel that we will be able to function."

Kristen Galles, lead attorney for the moms' group, Communities for Equity, said the association should have recognized a decade ago the injustice of a schedule unique in the nation that forced six sports to be played in disadvantageous seasons -- all girls sports.

"Why was MHSAA being so pigheaded?" asked Galles. "This money (the proposed fees) should have gone into new programs."

Galles, who runs a one-attorney, public-interest law firm in Alexandria, Va., and who has worked on the case 12 years for free, stands to receive $3.5 million in the fee request filed in federal district court in Kalamazoo before Judge Richard Alan Enslen on Jan. 29.

"My house has been mortgaged to pay for this lawsuit," Galles said. "How many people would have taken that kind of risk? If we had lost -- boom! It was huge. I had to invest a ton of money, and people don't do this unless they really believe in the cause."

Enslen ruled against the state association on every point in December 2001, finding girls were being discriminated against in violation of the Constitution, the federal anti-discrimination law Title IX, and Michigan's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

The MHSAA's fight ended in April 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal. The changes Enslen had ordered for the 2002-03 school year finally went into effect in September 2007.




Extras
Legal fees
A breakdown of the legal fees requested by law firms that represented a group of Grand Rapids parents in their successful federal anti-discrimination lawsuit:

Firm
Attorney's fees
Expenses
Total

Equity Legal (Kristen Galles)
$3,405,519
$89,511
$3,495,030

Nat'l. Women's Law Center
$998,870
$22,823
$1,021,693

Pinsky, Smith, Fayette, & Kennedy
$178,483

DLA Piper
$225,912
$11,075
$236,987


You can reach Fred Girard at (313) 222-2165 or fred.girard@detnews.com.

MHSAA vows to spare kids while paying bills
DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA

Help Outing Please
Posted Sunday, June 5, 2005 by Tom Wilson

Dear Friends,


FAAB of Wyandotte is now working on our next golf outing. Our 8 th Annual event is scheduled for Riverview Highlands Golf Course, Riverview, MI. It is on Friday, June 19, 2009. Last year our golfers from throughout Downriver had a fun outing and we expect the same this year. We would like your support this year? I have failed to attract enough support, to give equal scholarship dollars to female athletes. This year, girls will likely get $300 less per student, than male athletes get. It is only because of this FAAB outing, since 2000, that female athletes will get even the $700 per student, they will get. We could especially use your help by the donation of one or more door prizes in your name, volunteer to help us in a non golfing capacity, on the day, as a tee sponsor ($150 share tee, $300 at tee alone) or to encourage (foursomes) to golf at our event ($75 per golfer)?


We still have not met our initial goal of providing a similar total of scholarship dollars to girls, as our boys receive, but we hope we will reach this goal. If you can support our event, please contact me. Checks in support of Female Athletes should be made payable to “Female Alumni Athletic Boosters” (or FAAB of Wyandotte) and mailed to me.



Please accept our deep gratitude for any help you can now offer.


Tom Wilson, President
Female Alumni Athletic Boosters (FAAB of Wyandotte)
4045-23rd Street
Wyandotte, MI 48192-6902
313-235-4459 (work)
http://mi-gender-equity.com/

Complain to Get Equal Cheers
Posted Monday, March 15, 2004 by Tom Wilson

It has been suggested that individuals volunteer to file a Title IX complaint with the Cleveland Office Of Civil Rights, against their area Michigan local school district(s).

The complaintant would allege that the local district;

1) "Does not equally provide sideline cheering to boys and girls athletic teams". A complaint would be that all boys basketball and football games have sideline cheering, but no girls sports do.

2) "Does not equally allow and encourage both boys and girls to try out for and to be members of sideline cheering teams". By doing the above, local districts would be creating the opportunity for boy and girl cheerleaders to support both boy and girl athletes, and

3) "Does not equally provide prime-time play days to boy and girl athletes". The complaint would be that boys are scheduled for prime time league play days for their major sports, while girls are not.

Title IX does not recognize cheerleading as a sport, MHSAA does not consider sideline cheering a sport.