By Anna Giambelluca, Esq.
Every year, high school athletic associations across the nation make eligibility decisions that end athletic careers, redirect futures, and are rarely challenged. The long-held assumption is that playing high school sports is a privilege, not a protected right, and therefore can be taken away without explanation. For forty years, the courts agreed with that assumption. Then Zavior Ward, a senior at Hawaii Baptist Academy, was stripped of his eligibility for water polo, denied an exemption, and was never given a reason why. He brought his case to the legal arena, and for the first time in four decades, a federal court actually paused before accepting the status quo.
Ward’s claim is grounded in due process. After being ruled ineligible by the Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH), he requested an exemption, which was denied without notice, explanation, or opportunity to be heard. In response, Ward argued that ILH deprived him of a meaningful interest without providing the basic procedural protections required by the Constitution itself. What makes this case notable is the question it forces the court to confront: whether a student athlete has a legally protected interest in participating in interscholastic sports.
The Interscholastic League of Honolulu attempted to shut down that question by filing a motion for judgement on the pleadings, arguing that even if everything Ward was alleging was taken as true, his claim would still fail as a matter of law. Courts have consistently held that participation in athletics is an optional extracurricular, and therefore is not a constitutionally protected right and outside of the scope of due process protections.
The legal framework underlying this argument starts with a basic principle of law: the Due Process Clause protects against the deprivation of property without adequate process. However, the Constitution does not define property interests, so this comes from state law (statutes, contracts, common law, etc). This is where ILH’s argument begins to lose some steam. It relies heavily on older cases that treat athletics as purely extracurricular, something optional that students may participate in but are not entitled to. Under that framework, there is no “property” to protect, and therefore there is no due process violation when the opportunity to participate is taken away.
But that framework assumes something that is no longer accurate. It is outdated.
Ward’s argument forces the court to confront a new reality: high school athletics today are not what they were back when these cases were decided. Participation in athletics is no longer just about school involvement or personal development. It is tied directly to scholarship prospects, recruiting exposure, and the potential for financial opportunities. The Court acknowledges this shift, pointing to the broader changes in the sports landscape, including the impact of NCAA v. Alston and the rise of NIL rights.
These developments matter because they change what is actually at stake when the participation opportunity is taken. Being declared ineligible is no longer just about missing a season. It can mean losing exposure, scholarship opportunities, and access to potential future earnings. Once that is true, it becomes harder to say that participation in athletics carries no legally protected interest.
The court does not go as far as recognizing the interest outright, but does state that existing case law may not fully account for the modern realities. Instead of treating prior case decisions as controlling, it treats them as outdated or at least incomplete, allowing the court to step back and ask whether the assumptions of those cases still hold true.
The Court looks to Goss v. Lopez, where the Supreme Court recognized a property interest in public education. The Court does not state that the right to participate in athletics is the same as the right of education, but rather that property interests can develop over time as society evolves. What was once considered optional can become something the law is required to protect.
That comparison highlights the issue in Ward’s case: the law has long treated athletics as expendable, but the role athletics plays in a student’s life has evolved in ways that make that classification harder to argue.
Ultimately, the United States District Court for the District of Hawai’i refuses to resolve that question at this stage. It denied ILH’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that whether participation in interscholastic athletics constitutes a protected property interest is a material issue that requires further factual development. In other words, the court is not willing to dismiss the claim based solely on outdated assumptions without considering how the landscape is changed.
While this decision is mostly procedural, it is significant. For decades, courts have been willing to accept that athletic participation is a privilege that can be taken away without meaningful explanation. This case suggests that such an approach may no longer be sufficient. Zooming out, this case shows where sports law is heading. Athletes are operating in a system with clear economic value, while the law is still in the process of adjusting to that reality.
If participation in athletics can impact scholarships, future careers, and financial opportunities, it begins to look much more like the type of interest the law typically protects. At the very least, it becomes difficult to justify a system where those opportunities can be taken away without notice, explanation, or opportunity to respond.
But what makes this case more important than it initially appears is what it signals going forward. Even though the court did not recognize a protected property interest outright, it made clear that the question is no longer settled. By refusing to dismiss Ward’s claim at such an early stage, the court opened the door for future courts to take a closer look at how participation in athletics actually functions today.
This matters because once a court is willing to consider that a property interest could exist, the analysis changes. Athletic associations can no longer rely as confidently on the assumption that their decisions are safe from constitutional scrutiny. If participation in athletics is eventually recognized as a protected interest, it would require a baseline level of procedural fairness. This would require clear notice, explanations, and an opportunity to be heard before eligibility is taken away.
More importantly, this case reflects the continuous shift in sports law. As athletics becomes more connected to financial opportunity, the law is being pushed to reconsider how it categorizes participation. The label of “extracurricular” becomes harder to defend when the consequences of losing eligibility extend far beyond the field.
This case does not answer the question, but it makes it clear that it is no longer settled, and that the courts are going to have to take a harder look moving forward.
At some point soon, courts will have to decide whether participation in athletics has become more than a privilege. And when they do, the answer will not come from outdated assumptions, but from the reality of what athletics has transformed into. Ward’s case doesn’t answer the question, but it forces the courts to finally confront it. And once that happens, it becomes much harder to continue calling something a “privilege” when so much is at stake.
