by Dr. Anne Mulhern
Last year, InsideLowell (https://insidelowell.com/safety-concerns-spark-gender-controversy-following-game-involving-lowell-school/) reported that the coach of a Lowell Collegiate Charter School girls basketball team had chosen to forfeit a game against the opposing school, KIPP Academy, because the coach feared for the players’ safety, and the team’s future playoff success, after several players suffered injuries inflicted on them by an opposing male player.
At the time the coach made that decision, the coach had to balance three very significant concerns:
• The danger of injury to the players.
• How the forfeiture would affect the team’s standing in its league.
• The possibility that the team, the coach, or even the whole school would be penalized for choosing to forfeit by the league governing body.
The last is no idle concern.
In 2023, in Vermont, a small parochial school was banned from all participation in state athletics by the Vermont Principles Association because its girls basketball team had chosen to forfeit a game against an opposing team with a male player (https://www.vnews.com/mid-vermont-christian-school-ruled-ineligible-to-participate-in-vermont-principals-association-50260566).
Two bills (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/SD627 and https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD297), both entitled “An Act to Ensure Fairness and Safety in School Sports” were introduced in the Massachusetts legislature early this month. The purpose of the bills is to remove the third concern, that the team, coach, or even whole school would be punished by a league governing body for choosing to forfeit in these circumstances.
The legislation is modeled on Dighton-Rehoboth school district’s athletic policy (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ux2a6c8t0_HGgO8zuG5HVwf7z8Hbicem).
A little over a year ago, a female Dighton-Rehoboth student playing in a girls hockey match suffered severe facial injuries requiring hospitalization, when a shot taken by an opposing male player on the Swampscott girls hockey team hit her in the face.
Katie Ferriera-Aubin was involved in the design of the policy as a member of the Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee and is one of the petitioners listed on the bills.
The bills explicitly prohibit school or league organizations or the Massachusetts Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) from penalizing a team, coach, or school, that chooses to forfeit due to concerns about safety or fairness raised by the presence of a player of the opposite sex in a single-sex match.
