Nebraska District Settles
Another school district in Nebraska has settled a lawsuit that charged it discriminated against female athletes.
Under the terms of last month’s agreement, the North Platte district will add softball as a varsity sport, expand and renovate the girls’ locker room at the high school, and provide girls with equitable equipment, uniforms, scheduling, training, coaches, and publicity.
Four Nebraska districts were sued last year for violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination in institutions that receive federal funding. Female student athletes, represented by the Washington-based National Women’s Law Center and the law firm of Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, had sued the districts. The North Platte settlement is the third of the four to reach settlement.
Football Lawsuit
Seven football players at a western Louisiana high school have claimed in a lawsuit that school officials ruined their chances of winning college scholarships by allowing an overage player on the team.
The seniors last month sued the Vernon Parish school district, Pickering High School Principal Robert Craft, and former football coach James “Dell” Ashley.
The state’s high school athletic association discovered last November that a running back on the undefeated team had turned 19 before the cutoff date. That forced the squad to forfeit the season before it could compete in the state championship playoffs, said Brian Cespiva, the players’ lawyer.
The suit claims that disqualification from the playoffs inflicted psychological harm and cost the students scholarship chances.
Mr. Ashley, who resigned in January and is now coaching at another Louisiana high school, has been quoted as saying that he falsified the older player’s birth certificate after learning midseason that the player was overage. Mr. Craft is on leave and could not be reached for comment.
Saying No to Hollywood
A California school board has voted to prohibit a movie-production crew from shooting a horror-film spoof on the campus of Santa Rosa High School.
The Santa Rosa board last month turned down 4-1 a $30,000 deal from director Wes Craven and his Frightmare Inc. production company.
Mr. Craven, best known for creating the slasher character Freddy Krueger in “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” had initially threatened to sue the district in order to film his feature “Scary Movie” on the campus. However, a lawyer for the production company later said it would not sue.
