SICA Conference

[JRutledge]

This was discussed here before about a conference in my area. Now there is a lawsuit.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...hool-headlines


Suit filed in SICA breakup

By Michael Higgins
Tribune staff reporter

April 10, 2006, 6:33 PM CDT

A group of students, parents and educators from the southern suburbs filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging racial discrimination motivated the formation of two new athletic and extracurricular conferences dominated by predominantly white school districts.

The suit, whose plaintiffs include two predominantly black school districts, accuses 13 other districts of engaging in "white flight" and "secession" by pulling out of the racially diverse South Inter-Conference Association (SICA).

The suit accuses the mostly white districts of violating federal civil rights laws by creating "a racial Mason-Dixon line down I-57," the highway that separates the SICA districts on the east from the new conferences on the west.

A total of 22 high schools have left or have announced their intent to leave the 33-school SICA, according to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Chicago.

"The new Southwest Suburban Conference, which was formed during the past year by the secession of predominantly white schools from SICA, is 75 percent white," attorney Matthew J. Piers said. "The new South Suburban Conference, which announced its formation effective in the fall, is 60 percent white."

SICA would be left predominantly black in all but one school, the plaintiffs said.

"What we have here is a classic case of white flight, with a twist," Piers said at a news conference this morning at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago.

Other attorneys in the case include members of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The plaintiffs seek a court injunction preventing the departing districts from forming new conferences, forcing them to return to the Inter-Conference Association and organizing and scheduling inter-scholastic events in a way that does not result in racial segregation.

Two of the litigants are themselves school districts: Thornton Fractional School District 215, and Thornton Township High School District 205.

"We're educators. We're supposed to be helping kids see how it is to be together," District 215 Supt. Robert Wilhite said. Instead, he said, "we segregated and went backwards in time."

Wilhite said it "is just not right" that the schools remaining in the Inter-Conference Association after the split would be 80 percent minority.

Wilhite said he didn't buy the other school districts' stated reasons for leaving the conference, such as travel times. Noting how the conference has been in existence for 33 years, he said, "I don't know how all of a sudden, it's a big issue."

The plaintiffs have concluded that race is the real reason for the breakup, because "the other things don't make any sense," he said.

District 205 Supt. Kamala Buckner said the split affects not just sports.

"There's a greater impact on extracurricular activities – that would be the drama clubs, the chess clubs, all of the speech clubs … the ability for the students to compete at high levels in a diverse environment," Buckner said.

"We are being deprived of the opportunity to compete against other children of other different ethnicities," said Constance Stanley, a junior on the speech team and the drama club at Thornwood High School, 17101 S. Park Ave., South Holland.

Denise Snelling, a Thornwood parent, said, "Its disheartening because I've lived in the south suburbs for over 20 years, and before the white flight started, all of these people who don't want our children competing against them used to be my neighbors."

"These kids grew up together, they were friends," Snelling said. Then, she added, their parents moved west, and "now they don't want them to come back into our neighborhoods."

WGN-Ch. 9 contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Peace

[Texas Aggie]

Perhaps these attorneys need to read the first amendment of the constitution, then grab a casebook and check out some cases on free association.

As far as I know, unless I'm misunderstanding the facts, one school district doesn't have a duty to protect the civil rights of students in another school district, even assuming there was a civil rights violation by these actions -- which there isn't.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

Perhaps these attorneys need to read the first amendment of the constitution, then grab a casebook and check out some cases on free association.

As far as I know, unless I'm misunderstanding the facts, one school district doesn't have a duty to protect the civil rights of students in another school district, even assuming there was a civil rights violation by these actions -- which there isn't.

The First Amendment has to deal with government action against citizens for what they say and even that has limits. Not sure if the First Amendment is an issue here.

I am also not a lawyer and I do not know the Civil Rights case law that would deal with this issue. I agree with most of what is said, I just do not know if a lawsuit is going to solve the issue.

Peace

[cmathews]

What does any of this have to do with officiating???

[ChuckElias]

Originally Posted by cmathews

What does any of this have to do with officiating???

Nothing. But neither does the baseball thread. Once in a while, especially when there's not much basketball going on, we're allowed to talk about non-officiating issues. At least until the esteemed members get upset.

Here's my only question, and I ask because I honestly don't know. Has any court ever ruled that "white flight" (with or without the twist) is illegal? If there's some precedent for not allowing predominantly white schools to leave an association and form their own, then the suit may have some merit. I've never heard of a suit over "white flight" before this one. But I am obviously not a lawyer or civil rights authority.

[Texas Aggie]

I do some limited practice in the areas of first amendment and civil rights (mostly relating to first amendment protections). I haven't read many of the 60s/70s decisions relating to busing and white flight, so I'm not sure what the Supreme Court's standard would be in those cases. However, I am quite confident in asserting that the USSC hasn't enacted a duty on one school district to supposedly protect the civil rights of students of another school district by not joining a league or conference. I say "supposedly" since this presumes that such a conference could violate the rights of students of schools not in the conference, and that's not only not true, its absurd. Does the existence of the Pac-10 violate the rights of students at Gonzaga? How about Eastern Washington (since they are a state school like UW and WSU)?

If an individual school district changes boundries based on racial lines or draws specific athletic (or other) competition districts based on keeping minorities in one district and whites in another, that would be a big problem legally. But if that same district joins with other districts in a conference that just happens to be majority white and just happens not to invite majority black school districts, that's not illegal.

On the other hand, I can see some bonehead federal district judge signing a restraining order on this deal.

[rockyroad]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

Does the existence of the Pac-10 violate the rights of students at Gonzaga? How about Eastern Washington (since they are a state school like UW and WSU)?

.

Boy, you know your Washington schools...are you from WA and went to A&M?? Just curious, as a former Principal at my school was an Aggie also...

[JRutledge]

Well if you do not work in any Civil Rights law experience, I am sure there are statues that any lawyer would not be familiar with if they are not in that particular field. I would also bet that there issues at hand that are not quite reported in the media. Personally I do not see why the lawsuit was filed and what they want to ultimately accomplish. To say that if someone rules in the favor of the plaintiffs in this case or if a federal judge finds some validated in the case and to call them boneheaded is interesting to me. I was listening to a news interview from the Superintendent of Thornton Township District 205 (largely Black area and involved in the lawsuit) and she stated that her hope was to get all the 34 schools back together in the SICA conference. I do not see that as a realistic option, but we will have to see what the court decides or does not decide.

Peace

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by cmathews

What does any of this have to do with officiating???

If we can have a thread about baseball (my team is better than your team type of conversation) or what someone might eat at lunch, I think we can have a thread about a conference that is going to affect a bunch of officials in an area and an issue that was talked about on this site in the past. This has more to do with officiating than many other "off-topic" threads I read here.

Peace

[LarryS]

First off, I am not an attorney.

However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that people and organizations have a Constitutionally protected right to free association. If you recall, the most recent high profile ruling was related to the Boy Scouts of America when they ruled that the BSA had the right to put into place whatever membership restrictions they desired. Now this would be a little apples and oranges as the districts probably receive some tax dollars. However, if a non-attorney like me can think about saying "We are restricting the number of initial members in this conference to X, and we are already at that number. If, at some future date, the conference decides to expand we would welcome applications from the remaining SICA institutions." I feel sure that they are prepared for the suit. It is probably safe to assume the districts had some bright legal minds helping them organize.

Is it fair...maybe, maybe not. But life's not fair...grow up and get over it. This smells like "WAAA, they wont play with me!"

And, I agree with Texas Aggie...if a federal judge denies these districts their right to free association, he is a bonehead. I will even go as far as to say he would deserve to be impeached.

[Texas Aggie]

Well if you do not work in any Civil Rights law experience, I am sure there are statues that any lawyer would not be familiar with if they are not in that particular field.

What I said was it wasn't my primary area of practice. I'm quite familiar with virtually all civil rights statutes, as they are in a general area of the US Code. I am also making an educated guess at the various causes of action alleged as I haven't seen the complaint and can't find it on the federal database. Either it isn't on the system yet, wasn't filed in Illinois, isn't filed in federal court, was filed prior to 2006, or contains a party name I can't resolve from the article. Its almost certain that at least one of these holds true. Without seeing the actual complaint, I can only go by what I presume the various causes of action are. Perhaps they are alleging something I'm not familiar with but if its legitimate, that's not very likely. I've litigated several cases, including civil rights type cases, in federal court.

I would also bet that there issues at hand that are not quite reported in the media.

I am in 100% agreement with this.

To say that if someone rules in the favor of the plaintiffs in this case or if a federal judge finds some validated in the case and to call them boneheaded is interesting to me.

What I said was that I wouldn't be surprised if a boneheaded federal judge issues an injunction (didn't say anything about the merits of the case), implying he would be doing so without case. As I've explained, I would be very hard pressed to see how the plaintiffs in this matter have a valid complaint, much less any real success of winning, since for them to win, the court would have to violate the guaranteed rights of the school districts that have formed the conference they want to play in. A judge that grants an injunction on this nonsense would be boneheaded as he's only doing it for political, rather than legal, reasons. Unfortunately, there are too many federal judges that have a God-like complex since they are virtually immune from removal.

Now, if there's more information that you or anyone else has on this matter, I would be happy to reconsider. I'm basing my comments on the article, and while I agree that could potentially be short-sighted, its all in discussion here. I presume thats what you had in mind by posting the article in the first place.

And no, I've actually never been to Washington. I've constructed databases with information on colleges for years for sports stats (BCS computer type ratings) so I'm familiar with virtually every reasonably sized college in the US.

[26 Year Gap]

34 schools in one conference? Seems a bit unwieldy to me. Most conferences I have seen, and granted those are only in New England, seem to cap off at 10-12 schools.

[Mark Padgett]

Here's some comments from someone who graduated from one of these schools (Bloom) in 1965. First of all, the conference's current website sucks. Lots of the school information is incomplete, and some of the links take you to the site of a totally different conference.

OK, now for some history. When I attended Bloom (back before dirt was invented), we were in the South Suburban Conference with Joliet, Thornton, Argo, Kankakee, etc. The newer schools made up different conferences. We had a total of eight. All the schools in the conference were ethnically diverse and it really wasn't a big deal to any of us. I left the Chicago area in 1969 after college so I don't really know what it's like around there now.

One comment in the story implied that one of the main reasons given for the new split being travel time is not valid because that reason hasn't been a factor in the past. Maybe that person should look at a gas pump these days.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

One comment in the story implied that one of the main reasons given for the new split being travel time is not valid because that reason hasn't been a factor in the past. Maybe that person should look at a gas pump these days.

To use gas prices as an excuse is rather lame if you ask me. These schools are not that far from each other and if they go around playing schools well outside of the SICA area. Many of these schools play in tournaments and non-conference games that are far outside the area. So if these schools only played conference teams their travel would be a lot easier. Also some of the ripple affect from this conference breaking up formed a couple other conferences that required more travel for certain schools increased their travel by getting out of the SICA conference. Also travel times are not so much measured in miles but time if you live in this area. In some cases it might take you an hour to get 20 miles depending on the route you take.

Peace

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by ChuckElias

Here's my only question, and I ask because I honestly don't know. Has any court ever ruled that "white flight" (with or without the twist) is illegal? If there's some precedent for not allowing predominantly white schools to leave an association and form their own, then the suit may have some merit. I've never heard of a suit over "white flight" before this one. But I am obviously not a lawyer or civil rights authority.

If I have the information correct, one of the new conferences is around 60% white. It would be hard to convince anyone that the motivation for that set of schools was race when the ratio nearly matches (within 1-2%) the diversity of the greater Chicago area (based on stats from the Chicago Tribune reporting the number of households in zipcodes where the Tribune is sold.)