Judge Rules Gymnastics Will Return

By Carla M. Collado
Staff Writer

A federal judge last week ruled that Wilson High School officials showed a “disregard for the impact on female students” and discriminated against them when it dismantled the girls’ gymnastics practice room last summer and planned to convert it into a fitness center.

In his March 4 preliminary decision, U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess ordered Wilson and Long Beach Unified School District officials to reinstate the gymnastics room (to the state it was in before its dismantling on July 13, 2007). He wrote that the school plainly violated Title IX — a gender-based anti-discrimination law — when it decided to enhance a boys’ sports facility at the expense of a girls’ athletic team.

Wilson’s gymnastics coach Steve Marion and several gymnasts’ parents sued the school district, school board and Wilson principals Diane Brown and Lewis Kerns last August, claiming they were discriminating against the female gymnasts by turning their only practice facility into a fitness center that would mainly benefit the boys’ football team.

The LBUSD argued that the new weight-training facility would be used by all physical education students and sports teams at Wilson, serving up to 3,000 students weekly rather than just the gymnasts, and would help the school meet state physical education mandates.

The bench trial (without a jury) lasted from Feb. 19 to 21.

“It’s unfortunate,” LBUSD Spokesman Chris Eftychiou said. “The principal (Brown) really was making a decision based on what made the most sense for the greatest number of students, of both genders.”

After their equipment was removed, the Wilson gymnasts practiced in the small gym for several weeks, spending much of their time setting up and taking down equipment. In mid-November, the team moved back into its original practice room after Feess ordered the school to stop dismantling and converting the room into a fitness center until the trial started.

The team’s attorney, Danika Vittitoe, said that although the team moved back into the room, the spring floor was missing and some of the equipment was damaged (from when the school dismantled the room). Damages total more than $7,000, mainly to mats and a balance beam.

Eftychiou said the school district already has agreed to replace (and has ordered) up to $8,000 in damaged and lost gymnastics equipment.

Vittitoe said the team still does not know where the spring floor — which cost the team about $7,000 used but would cost about $20,000 new — is being stored or what condition it is in.

In February, the district offered to pay for the gymnastics team’s use of the American Gymnastics Academy (about three miles from the school) five days a week, and to provide bus transportation. However, the team rejected the offer.

“Title IX, we believe, really supports keeping the facility on campus,” Vittitoe said.

Vittitoe called the offer a short-term solution. Taking practices off-campus would diminish the sport’s visibility to other students and make it harder for the team to attract new recruits, she added. Another problem, she said, was that the Academy (which is privately owned) could end its agreement with the LBUSD, raise its fees or leave the city at any time.

In his preliminary decision, Feess stressed that given the “substantial” interest in girls’ gymnastics at Wilson, the low participation of female students in sports at Wilson (39% for the 2006-07 year) and the fact that the gymnastics room is the only facility dedicated solely to a female sport at Wilson, “the needs of the gymnastics team must be fully and effectively accommodated.” This includes providing adequate equipment, locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities.

Male athletes at Wilson, on the other hand, already have dedicated facilities such as a wrestling room, baseball clubhouse (with a foosball table), batting cages and a football weight room and locker room, Feess explained.

He went on to write that the gymnastics program was given second-class treatment and that the school used the “purported need to establish a ‘fitness center’” to convert the gymnastics room into “a weight-lifting facility for use, primarily, by the football team along with other boy’s sports teams.”

Plans for the new fitness center at Wilson called for half of the room to have the boys’ football team’s weight-lifting equipment and the other half to have universal weight machines for physical education students and other sports teams, Vittitoe said.

“It is very vindicating,” Vittitoe said of the judge’s decision. “The law was on our side and justice was done.”

Feess ordered the plaintiffs to prepare proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law (more detailed legal pleadings), which Vittitoe said she plans to file by March 21.

Eftychiou pointed out that Feess also found that Wilson and LBUSD officials did not intend to “disadvantage the gymnastics team because of its gender composition.” He said the district will revisit the judge’s preliminary decision and consult the school board and the district’s legal counsel to discuss what to do next (appealing the decision is one option).