By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-11-22 20:21:29 | Updated at 2024-11-29 12:44:19
6 days ago
CV NEWS FEED // The families of two high-school girls in California are suing a school after the kids’ “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts were compared to the Nazi swastika by an official in their school’s athletic department.
The two girls, Kaitlyn and Taylor, are cross-country runners for Martin Luther King High School and wore T-shirts displaying the messages “Save Girls Sports” and “It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY” to practice.
Kaitlyn and Taylor’s families are now suing the school after its officials allegedly forced the girls to remove and cover their shirts, told them that wearing the shirts was like “wearing a swastika in front of Jewish students,” and moved the girls to the Junior Varsity cross-country team.
The lawsuit alleges the school violated Kaitlyn and Taylor’s First Amendment rights, 14th Amendment rights, and Title IX protections.
According to Fox News,
The girls wore the shirts after a transgender athlete, who didn’t consistently attend practices or meet key varsity eligibility requirements, was placed on the varsity team, displacing Taylor from her spot, the complaint alleged.
The lawsuit stated that the same treatment was not afforded to a “transgender” student at the school, who is allowed to wear “trans pride bracelets.” The school also allows displays of LGBTQ pride flags inside classrooms.
Kaitlyn explained that her and Taylor’s shirts were not meant to be harmful but to draw attention to their Title IX rights being violated. She said she and her friend were both shocked by the school’s comments.
“It was definitely hard to hear because we’re by no means trying to be hateful,” she said to Fox News Digital. “We’re just wearing a shirt that expresses what we believe in trying to raise awareness to a situation.”
In speaking to Fox News Digital, Kaitlyn explained the school also displaced her from the cross-country team in favor of the “transgender” student.
“There’s a transgender student on the team,” said Kaitlyn. “Why am I getting displaced when I worked so hard and gone to all of the practices? And this student has only attended a few of the practices.”
The legal complaint noted: “The biological male transgender athlete who displaced T.S. on the girls’ varsity team had recently transferred from another local high school after breaking that school’s all-time cross-country record for the girls’ cross-country team.”
An original complaint to the Riverside Unified School District was not resolved and the district could not provide a clear reason for Taylor’s displacement from the Varsity team, ultimately leading to the current lawsuit.
The new complaint further stated:
T.S., who had held a position on the girls’ Varsity Top 7 since August 2024 was removed from the girls’ Varsity Top 7 to make room on the girls’ Varsity Top 7 for an eleventh-grade transgender student and T.S. was relegated to the junior varsity team for one of the most important meets of the season for college recruitment.
