By Courtney Flowers, Associate Professor of Sport Studies & Sport Leadership, Texas Southern University
In 2019, parents representing six James Campbell High School (JCHS) student-athletes filed a motion for Class Certification against the Oahu Interscholastic Association (OIA) and the Hawaii State Department of Education (HSDE) claiming their Title IX rights have been violated by experiencing unequal treatment in the girls’ athletics programs. As result, OIA filed a memorandum in opposition and HSDE filed a substantive joinder. As result, the United States District Court of Hawaii denied the plaintiff’s motion to certify class. However, in 2022 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed this decision. The case was remanded to district court for further proceedings.
Facts
Members of the JCHS girls’ varsity water polo, soccer, swimming teams sought declaratory and injunctive relief to redress alleged violations of Title IX in (1) competitive facilities; (2) scheduling of games; (3) travel opportunities; and (4) publicity and promotion hence consistently allocating better facilities to boys’ athletic programs. Specifically, the plaintiffs claim 1) violation of Title IX based on the defendant’s failure to provide equal treatment to student-athletes on the girl’s teams; 2) violation of Title IX due to the defendant’s failure to provide student-athletes on girl’s teams at JCHS with equivalent athletic participation opportunities; and 3) violation of Title IX against the HSDE based on their retaliation for the plaintiffs’ attempts to report and discuss the HSDE’s practice of sex discrimination.
Procedural history
The Title IX case was brought before the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii in 2019.
Title IX states “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U.S.C. § 1681.
First the court addressed the issue of mootness which the defendants argued that two plaintiffs had already graduated. The court denied the defendant’s claim of mootness under the “inherently transitory” exception to mootness. The “inherently transitory” rationale was developed to address circumstances in which the challenged conduct was effectively unreviewable, because no plaintiff possessed a personal stake in the suit long enough for litigation to run its course.
Next the court addressed the defendant’s claim of standing citing the water polo plaintiff had not begun their season yet and therefore had not experienced sex discrimination. However, the plaintiffs contend sex-discrimination was felt by all girls participating in sports at James Campbell High School as they were forced to make plans around a discriminatory sports schedule and were exposed to a lack of publicity for the girl’s athletics programs. Therefore, the defendants’ claim of lack of standing was denied.
Then the Court addressed the Rule 23(a) requirements and found that the plaintiffs satisfied the commonality, typicality, and adequacy requirements and did not satisfy the numerosity requirement.
The numerosity analysis provides “A proposed class must be so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable”. Also, the numerosity inquiry “requires examination of the specific facts of each case and imposes no absolute limitations.” The court cited the proposed class which exceeded 300 members were limited to girls from a single high school in Hawaii and were identifiable through school and athletic records. As such the court held the joinder of the current students within the class in a single lawsuit was not impracticable and future students were not reasonably identifiable.
As such on May 3, 2019, United States District Judge Leslie Kobayashi denied the Class citing it could not be certified because it failed to meet the numerosity and Rule 23(a) requirements. The Plaintiff appealed this decision to United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The order denying the class certification was reversed as the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found (1) the district court erred in concluding the direct victims of unlawful retaliation had claims that were atypical of the indirect victims as plaintiffs’ retaliation claim was not premised solely on the injury of threatening to cancel the girls’ water polo program. (2) The court held that the district court abused its discretion in holding that plaintiffs had not established commonality and typicality as to their retaliation claim given that the retaliation claims of both the named plaintiffs and the class members would rest on the underlying motivation for the Department’s alleged retaliatory actions in response to receiving Title IX complaints.
Outcome
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revered the judgment on April 4, 2022, and the case is remanded to district court for further proceedings.
