Lawsuit to Strip WIAA of Sports Rule-making Powers
There’s a lawsuit that asks the question why the WIAA gets to set the rules for high school sports in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Monday announced the case it filed last month that challenges the WIAA’s sole authority to decide who gets to play high school sports in the state.
“Every public high school in the State belongs to WIAA, accounting for approximately 80 percent of WIAA members. And public-school districts, like the Baraboo School District, have ceded to WIAA exclusive authority to decide which of their students can participate on their teams. No statute or constitutional provision gives WIAA this power or authorizes school districts to delegate this power to it,” WILL wrote in its brief.
The lawsuit adds that “WIAA’s exercise of this power, and school districts’ deferral to WIAA, violates multiple doctrines and constitutional provisions," including “the bedrock principle that government power may not be exercised without statutory or constitutional authority.”
WILL is suing on behalf of a high schooler in Baraboo, Macy Weigel, who recently transferred from a private school to the public high school.
The family says the WIAA would not allow their daughter to play on Baraboo’s high school football team, and ordered that she miss a year’s worth of her sport.
“Our daughter is not gaming the system. She simply wants to participate in high school sports and is making the best of her family’s involuntary decision to switch schools,” mom Emily Weigel said in a statement. “The WIAA has gone too far, and we are fighting back on her behalf and the many other students who have been subject to the arbitrary decision-making of this organization.”
WILL’s Skylar Croy said the WIAA, which calls itself a private group, is telling public schools what they must do with public school students.
“Our clients live and pay taxes in the school district, and their child has been denied access to programs sponsored and funded by the district because the bureaucrats at the WIAA arbitrarily decided she was not worthy of a ‘waiver’ of their ‘transfer rules.’ We must rein in this illogical decision making to allow children the full opportunity to flourish and develop,” Croy added.
WILL’s lawsuit asks the court to not only “declare that WIAA cannot exercise governmental power,” but to reinstate Weigel and allow her to play softball.
“[The] WIAA enforced its so-called ‘Transfer Rule’ to prohibit Macy from participating in varsity sports for one year and then denied the school district’s and the Weigels’ request for an exemption due to ‘extenuating circumstances,’ with little to no rational explanation. And the school district has indicated that it believes itself bound by WIAA’s determination,” the lawsuit added. “Yet WIAA has no more power to enforce its transfer rules against Macy than it could tell her she cannot enroll in AP Physics.”
This is not the first time there’s been a challenge to the public side of the WIAA’s private rules.
A group of Republican lawmakers are pushing legislation that would force the WIAA to abide by Wisconsin’s open meetings and open record rules.
The WIAA has said in defense of those rules, that it is a private organization, and shouldn’t be forced to follow the rules created for government bodies.
Interested in the content of this Article?
Reach out to the MacIver Institute to aquire more information