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I will add my two cents of legal thought without having read any pleadings or the trial judge's order:
My two cents are this: I wouldn't immediately laught at the religious school's complaint. There is a pretty well known (in Constitutional Law Circles) case that involved high school athletics. It is known as the Brentwood Academy case.
In that case, Brentwood Academy (a private school) sued the Tennessee high school association (I don't recall its official name) because the Tennessee association had put the Academy on probation and barred them from the state football playoffs (as I recall) for illegally recruiting 8th graders.
Brentwood Academy sued alleging that the Association had violated their First Amendment Right to Free Speech. In order to win, Brentwood had to first prove that the Association was a "state actor". The reason they had to prove that is because a "private actor" (i.e. a non-governmental entity) can not violate anyone's first amendment rights. A state actor, however, can violate one's first amendment right (as the first amendment has been applied to the state's through the fourteenth amendment's due process clause).
Anyways, to the surprise of many, the US Supreme Court held that the Tennessee Association WAS a state actor, and thus said Brentwood Academy's suit could go forward (the Supreme Court sent the case back to the federal district court for a trial to see if the Association did, in fact, violate the Academy's First Amendment Rights).
This was a surprise because the US S.Ct. had previously held that the NCAA was NOT a state actor, but rather a private organization. But here, however, the Court said (among other things) that the Tennessee Association's membership was comprised of 86% public schools, that those schools used public money (taxes) to pay their membership dues to the association and that state employees (i.e. principals and superintendents) ran the Association. Thus the Association was a "state actor".
(As an aside: Years later...the Tennessee Association was found not to have violated Brentwood's 1st amendment right.) However, this case was a major case in expanding who and what is a "state actor".
Thus, to bring this home, while I don't know the merits of the Texas' religious school's claim that its equal protection rights were violated...I wouldn't laugh this case off in that I have no doubt that the Texas Association is a "state actor" subject to this lawsuit.
This is definitely a case I'll be on the lookout for if it is, in fact, appealed.
Does anyone know if this case was brought in State Court or Federal Court? (And it could be either...under our US Constitution State Courts are competent to adjudicate federal claims.)
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