Title IX Lawsuit Says Female Athletes at College Park High School Subject to ‘Flagrantly Unequal Treatment’

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A proposed Title IX class action lawsuit accuses the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in California of illegally failing to provide female College Park High School athletes with equal access to and experience with sports opportunities “on a par” with those provided to their male counterparts. 

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The 24-page lawsuit says that female College Park High School athletes, “simply because of their gender,” experience “flagrantly unequal treatment, benefits, and opportunities” and are, “in some cases literally,” denied a “level playing field” as a result of the school district’s sex-based discriminatory conduct. 

According to the filing, CPHS is a four-year public high school with nearly 2,000 students, more than 450 of which are female student athletes. The case claims the school has no history and continuing practice of expanding athletic programs for girls, and only 42 percent of the athletic participation slots school-wide are afforded to girls, both apparent Title IX violations. 

As an example, the case relays, male CPHS athletes have for decades had a “well-groomed and secure,” state-of-the-art baseball facility located near the campus parking lot and the boys’ locker room, with batting cages, bullpens, spacious dugouts and storage areas, among other amenities. Female softball players, on the other hand, “have nothing of the kind,” the suit claims, as their field is “poorly maintained,” located in a remote area of the campus and in sore need of a facelift. 

The softball field, “uneven and overgrown with gopher holes in the outfield,” also boasts just a single porta-potty without running water, lockers that are “too small for athletic gear,” and a dugout that is nothing more than “a decrepit bench with chain link fencing” that offers no protection from the sun, wind or foul balls, the complaint alleges. 

“But perhaps the worst part of the indignity for female athletes at CPHS is knowing that their school does not value them as much as it values male athletes, and that they are, in essence, second-class because of their gender,” the proposed class action lawsuit scathes. 

The plaintiffs, 11th- and 12th-grade girls varsity softball players, accuse the Mt. Diablo School District of violating Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. For high school athletic programs, the suit stresses, Title IX requires equity with regard to athletic treatment and benefits and athletic participation opportunities. 

“The District offers significantly more participation opportunities to boys than to girls and has done so for years,” the lawsuit alleges. “While the participation gap at CPHS is currently 4.7%, it was 6.8% as recently as the 2018–2019 school year, meaning that the District needed to add as many as 176 more opportunities for girls to reach proportionality with the boys.” 

The suit goes on to note that the CPHS girls flag football team has only limited access to the turf stadium where the men’s tackle football teams play, and practices are held primarily on an “unkempt, heavily used grassy area” beyond the softball outfield. More broadly, the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms are unequal, as those of the latter are small, old and wholly inadequate for female athletes, the filing claims. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all present and future College Park High School female students and potential students who participate, seek to participate, and/or are or were deterred from participating in athletics at the school. 

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