Yesterday, the parents of four high school soccer players filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to change the way that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) and its member schools schedule girls’ soccer. Currently, girls’ soccer is the only sport in the state that competes in two different seasons and the only sport that does not have a unified statewide championship. All boys’ soccer teams play in the Fall and compete for one statewide championship.

The four girls, Courtney and Samantha Hamsher of Wyomissing High School, Kim Speese of Central Bucks South High School, and Laura DiClemente of Wissahickon High School, have grown weary of the different treatment girls’ soccer receives from the PIAA and their high schools. Kim Speese said: "I am sick of the boys having a state championship but girls not being able to compete for a statewide championship at all."

In Pennsylvania, all boys’ soccer teams compete in the Fall. In contrast, 60% of the girls’ soccer teams compete in the Fall, and about 40%, almost all in the eastern part of the state, compete in the Spring. PIAA schedules two separate championship seasons for the girls, so there is no true state champion, as there is in every other sport. "For three years now I’ve played soccer without ever having the hope that I could play for a statewide championship," junior Samantha Hamsher complained.

In the Fall, boys’ teams are divided by the size of the school, meaning teams compete against other teams with similar talent pools. Girls’ teams in the Spring, on the other hand, are not divided, meaning teams of all sizes compete against one another. Said Courtney Hamsher: "Our small high school has to play against the biggest schools in the area, and we have no chance to win against them because there are so many girls there. The boys don’t have the same problem. It’s not fair."

Making the situation even more difficult on the girls is the grueling schedule they have to deal with in the Spring. Girls who play club soccer and/or Olympic Development soccer, two programs that schedule most of their practices and competitions in the Spring, risk exhaustion and injury in trying to play two or three different levels of soccer at once. Laura DiClemente, who has played through injuries because of the demanding schedule, notes, "The boys don’t have to play in three different programs at once because they play high school soccer in the Fall and outside soccer in the Spring. They don’t have to play tired or injured and don’t have to lose sleep in order to get their homework done after soccer."

"Discrimination in high school sports is unlawful under federal law," said David S. Cohen, staff attorney at the Women’s Law Project, the Philadelphia non-profit legal organization that is co-counsel representing the families. "Title IX and the federal and state constitutions require equal treatment of girls’ and boys’ sports, and the Pennsylvania soccer system does not live up to that standard because it treats girls’ soccer like a second-class sport."

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits any educational institution receiving federal funding from discriminating based on sex. Much of the focus of Title IX has been on college sports, but it applies with equal force to high school athletics. Last year, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that, because boys’ soccer was scheduled in one season, New York schools could not split the girls’ soccer seasons. "The court in New York said that the split scheduling placed a ceiling on girls’ achievement because they had no chance to be statewide champions," said Maureen Q. Dwyer, attorney at Pepper Hamilton LLP, who is co-counseling the case with the Women’s Law Project. "The Pennsylvania system creates the same barrier to equality for girls that the system in New York did."

The soccer families are represented by the Women’s Law Project and Pepper Hamilton LLP. The Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Philadelphia that has fought for legal and economic equality for women and their families since 1974. Pepper Hamilton LLP is a multi-practice law firm with over 400 lawyers in 10 offices. The firm provides corporate, litigation and regulatory legal services to leading businesses, governmental entities, nonprofit organizations and individuals throughout the nation and the world. The firm was founded in 1890.