FHSAA rescinded the reduction to athletic contests in Wednesday's board meeting. The decision was surely in response to a storm of protest on the gender-equity front, embodied in a Title IX lawsuit filed in Jacksonville in June.
"I believe what we did in April was the best thing for the membership then, and given the situation, what we did today was in its best interest now," said FHSAA Board of Directors President Greg Zornes in a press release.
The original intent was to save money for member schools in a collapsing economy, while maintaining a reasonable network of competition. Football, with by far the fewest contests, was understandably left out of the equation, and competitive cheer was exempted as a sop to gender balance. However, as the organization's own participation survey shows, about 36,000 more girls than boys would be impacted by the schedule reductions, an obvious inequity. Now the organization and member schools will be left looking for a new plan to deal with school sports expenses even as school district revenues are crashing. They will have to come up with a more equitable way to cut costs when they come back for Round Two.
See my column in the Chiefland Citizen for more perspective.
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