Private School Sues Virginia High School League, Claiming ‘a Blatant Violation of Antitrust Laws’
Liberty Christian Academy (LCA), a Lynchburg, VA based private school, has sued the Virginia High School League (VHSL), the governing body for high school sports across the state, for excluding it from membership.
LCA, which is represented by New York-based Winston & Strawn, LLP, alleges in the lawsuit that the VHSL’s practice is “a blatant violation of antitrust laws.”
LCA, which has been seeking membership for several years, is currently relegated to membership in the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association.
The plaintiff is trying “to force the Virginia High School League to end its illegal group boycott of non-public schools,” according to a press release issued by Winston & Strawn, whose attorneys (notably lead counsel Jeffrey Kessler) have litigated some of the most famous sports antitrust cases in history.
The firm added that the school “is currently prohibited from competing in the VHSL playoff system and faces a rules scheme designed to prevent public schools from competing with private schools like LCA in athletic events, a scheme which violates antitrust laws.”
Elaborating on this, the law firm added that public schools that” schedule matchups with LCA, in violation of VHSL rules, are subject to fines, suspensions, and other penalties. The VHSL has recently adopted a points system for determining qualification for the state football playoffs. Under this system, schools are awarded points for playing public school opponents (even if they lose), but receive no points for playing non-public schools. This system all but ensures that LCA and other non-public schools are excluded from playing football games with competitive public schools in Virginia.”
This creates a problem for LCA, especially its football program, which has captured seven state titles.
“LCA cannot regularly schedule the highest quality opponents, especially from local areas, to participate in football and basketball contests exhibited to the public due to exclusion from the VHSL,” reads the lawsuit. Furthermore, LCA must “resort to scheduling teams of lower quality, and often hundreds of miles away, including from out of state, to engage in high school football and basketball contests.”
There is an economic component as well, according to the lawsuit: “This injury includes the fact that LCA and other non-public high schools have received, and will receive, less revenue for the exhibition of their high school football and basketball contests than they would receive in a competitive market.”
Jason Hicks of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice LLP, recently wrote that LCA’s argument is that “the VHSL’s rules are akin to a group boycott and constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of federal and state antitrust laws. The relevant markets alleged in the complaint are the markets for commercial exhibition of high school football contests and basketball contests in Virginia.
“Although some states allow private high schools to join their public high school athletic leagues, other states have separate private and public leagues, such as Virginia, Maryland and Texas. In the lawsuit, LCA argues that the prohibition of non-public high school membership in the VHSL has no pro-competitive purpose and cannot be justified on any claimed basis that it is necessary to promote fair on-field competition. I suspect that the ability of private schools to recruit and give scholarships to football and basketball players from a wide geographic area (unlike public schools that have to find players within their own geographic district) would be one of the reasons for the VHSL’s rule.”
Hicks, who admits that he has family ties to some of the public schools described in the complaint, added that the complaint’s reference to the “’integration of public and private schools into one athletic association’ appears to suggest a strained analogy to civil rights and the racial integration of public schools in Virginia. LCA should be very careful in suggesting any such analogy, given that LCA was specifically founded in 1967 as a segregation academy in response to the integration of public schools in Virginia. There is no small amount of irony in LCA’s complaint that it is being excluded and segregated from public school athletic competition.”
Winston & Strawn is resolute about its position.
“The VHSL barriers to free competition deprive local student-athletes from gaining national exposure which could improve their opportunities to be recruited to play in college,” it noted. “The concerted boycott against non-public schools such as LCA also deprives the public of seeing local teams play one another and develop natural rivalries. Some of the best high school rivalries in the nation have resulted from eliminating the barrier between public and non-public schools. One example is in Florida, where Lakeland Senior High School and St. Thomas Aquinas have regularly competed for State Championship titles and are often ranked nationally.”
A copy of the federal court complaint can be accessed at: http://www.lcabulldogs.com/media/9910/vhslpressrelease/Complaint_-_LCA_v_VHSL_(file_stamped).pdf
