Two teenage runners have sued their high school after being forbidden from wearing “Save Girls’ Sports” T-shirts, saying they were told by school officials that the “hostile” messages were tantamount to swastikas.
The lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeks to overturn the speech code at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, which prohibits clothing with messages “likely to create a hostile or intimidating environment based on any protected class.”
The motion also asks the court to declare that the Riverside Unified School District has “violated Title IX by failing to provide equal treatment, benefits, and opportunities for girls in athletic competition.”
Taylor Starling, 16, and Kaitlyn Slavin, 15, wore the T-shirts, which also say “It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY,” at an Oct. 26 cross-country meet after Taylor lost her Varsity Top 7 spot on the girls’ team to a male-born athlete who identifies as female.
Nearly two dozen others, including parents and grandparents, also donned the navy blue shirts at the meet.
When the girls wore the tees to a Nov. 1 cross-country practice, however, the coach told them to change their shirts or turn them inside out, warning them that the message was “analogous to a student who wore a shirt with a swastika in front of a Jewish student.”
After parents complained, the principal told them that the shirts “create a hostile environment for one of the athletes on the team,” and repeated the swastika analogy.
Both girls deny that they were being hostile or targeting other students.
“I was not trying to be hateful by any means,” Kaitlyn said in an interview on Fox News. “We didn’t want to target nobody. Me and Taylor are nice people, and we want others to know that. This was just something that we believe in. We believe biological males should not be competing against females, and we’re just saying what we believe.”
Representing the girls and their families are Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a California-based group that praised the teens “challenging policies that push girls out of their own sports to make room for biological male athletes.”
“Their lawsuit not only challenges the school’s selective enforcement of its dress code but demands a court ruling to restore fairness and integrity to girls’ sports,’ said the organization in a statement. “This case is about more than two young athletes; it’s a stand for free speech, fair play, and the fundamental right of girls to compete on a level playing field without being sidelined by ideologies that disregard biological differences.”
The district said that it has little choice in the matter, noting that both California law and the California Interscholastic Federation require that scholastic athletes be permitted to compete based on gender identity.
“It is important to remember that RUSD is bound to follow California law, which requires that students be ‘permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records,’” said the district statement.
Riverside Unified also said that the “protections we provide to all students are not only aligned with the law but also with our core values which include equity and well-being.”
Instead of targeting the district, “opposition and protests should be directed at those in a position to affect those laws and policies (including officials in Washington D.C. and Sacramento),” said the statement.
The lawsuit said that the transgender runner identified as M.L. frequently missed practice or arrived late after transferring to MLK High School in June, but knocked Taylor out of the varsity Top 7 even though she has attended every practice this season.
Certainly M.L. is fast. The student “broke the previous school’s existing girls’ all-time cross-country record, a record that had not been broken since 2014,” according to the motion.
After missing practice for a week, M.L. competed in an Oct. 19 varsity race at the school with a time of 19 minutes, 41 seconds. Taylor’s time was 20 minutes, 42 seconds.
The girls said many people have offered encouragement as they fight for fairness in female sports.
“I feel like a lot of people are very supportive about this, especially people on my team,” Taylor said on Fox News. “I wouldn’t try to convince someone. You believe in what you believe in, and what I believe is that girls should get an equal playing field in women’s sports.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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