Individual Rights at School and at Work: Is This a Stadium or a Courtroom?

from: A High-School Student's Bill of Rights

Brief Description
Students consider legal disputes that arise in a setting seemingly distant from the legal system: sports.

Objective
To underscore the lesson that disputes over law and individual rights tough all phases of daily life, even athletic and recreational activities.

Procedures
Read the case summaries which follow:

Stirrup v. Mahan (Ind. 1972)

A young man had transferred from a high school in Miami, Florida to one in Bloomington, Indiana, where he wanted to play varsity football. The student tried to join the high-school team without waiting a year to become eligible, as required by the Indiana High School Athletic Association. The association had passed the rule to limit excessive recruiting of talented high-school athletes.

The court decided in favor of the student, on the grounds that the regulations in question were more broadly drawn than necessary to prevent recruiting or school-jumping. However, the court left no doubt that the principle at stake was an important one that justified protection by groups like the athletic association. The court stated:

Schools are for education. There is no doubt that extracurricular athletic competition may add to the educational process, but the extracurricular activities should not take precedence over the curricular activities of the school. The sideshow may not consume the circus. The prevention of recruiting and school-jumping are both fitting and proper goals by which the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) maintains the amateur standing of high school athletics. This we deem to be a compelling state interest.

Call v. University of Minnesota (Minn. 1982)

Mark Hall played basketball at the University of Minnesota. He has passed 90 hours of work in the university's non-degree program. Under Big 10 Conference rules, he had to enter a degree program or lose his eligibility; however, he was denied admission for his senior year because of academic problems and unspecified allegations concerning his conduct.

Hall sought a court order allowing him to play. Noting that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits state agencies (including public university) from depriving anyone of "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law, the court held that Hall had a constitutionally protected, proprietary interest in participating in athletic programs because of his legitimate expectations of securing a professional contract if he played college basketball during his senior year. Therefore, the course said, Hall was entitled to a hearing.

In analyzing the case, the court concluded that Hall was the victim of a "tug of war" between the university's academic wing and its athletic department. The judge showed little sympathy for either group, but much sympathy for Hall as a pawn in this game:

The university's academic wing argues that if this court orders Hall into a degree program, its academic standards and integrity would be undermined. Hall and his fellow athletes were never recruited on the basis of scholarship and it was never envisioned they would be on the Dean's List. Consequently we must view with some skepticism the university's clam regarding academic integrity. This court is not saying that athletes are incapable of scholarship; however, they are given little incentive to be scholars, and few persons care how the student-athlete performs academically, including many of the athletes themselves. The exceptionally talented student-athlete is led to perceive the basketball, football and other athletic programs as farm teams and proving grounds for professional sports leagues. It may well be true that a good academic program for the athlete is made virtually impossible by the demands of the sport at the college level. If this situation causes harm to the university, it is because [the university has] fostered it and the institution rather than the individual should suffer the consequences.

Answer these questions in writing:

A. Do cases like these belong in court? Why or why not? Does it seem odd to settle disputes about athletics in court?

B. In the Stirrup case, did the athletic association have good reason for setting rules that limited student-athletes' ability to change schools? Did the court think the reasons were valid?

C. Who do you think had the strongest argument sin the Hall case? Do you agree with the court that Hall was caught in the middle of what was really an argument between the academic and athletic branches of the University of Minnesota? Do you see any other way in which this dispute could have been settled?

D. Does it make sense to you that the court basically found that Hall had a Fourteenth Amendment right to play basketball? Do you think this would surprise those who drafted the amendment?

Discuss your answers with your class.

Additional Activities
Encourage students to look for newspaper reports about professional athletes' contract negotiations, strikes or demands for more pay. Discuss the question of whether legal disputes involving highly paid athletes should be treated in the same way as any other labor-management dispute. How are the two situations similar? How do they differ?

Results/Benefits
Law has a vast influence on everyone's activities, even those activities in which people engage to escape the pressures of daily life. Students see that the legal system influences every aspect of life, even in ways that may appear silly or bizarre.

Comments
Ask your students to think about other reasons why parents might want to send their children to a particular school. What if a student wanted to attend the school so that she could be a part of its theater group? An unusual academic program? Should there be a recognized constitutional right to participate? Does it matter whether the program is part of the curriculum or an extracurricular activity?

Source
ED 256 649
South Carolina State Dept. of Education. "Students and the Law." Columbia, SC: Office of Vocational Education (1984) 91 pp.

Additional Resource
Flygare, Thomas J. "Texas Supreme Court Upholds 'No Pass/No Play' Rule." Phi Delta Kappan 67 (September 1985) p. 71.

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