12/6/17
Not a square to spare
Phillip Bantz, Lawyers Weekly
Gender inequality between athletic programs at a high school in Cayce has reached the point that coaches for female student athletes have been reduced to snatching toilet paper from men’s restrooms at athletic facilities, according to a federal lawsuit.
Emily Heise, the former girls’ soccer coach at Brookland-Cayce High School, alleges in her unlawful discrimination suit that female coaches’ “requests for such simple supplies for the restrooms at their facilities go unanswered.”
Heise coached the varsity soccer team from 2009 through 2017, when she left for another school. She says in her Nov. 17 complaint that she left Brookland-Cayce because of the “hostile and negative atmosphere toward women coaches and women in sports and the inequities” at the school.
Aside from not having toilet paper, Heise alleges that she and other female coaches were kept in the dark about the budgets for their teams and had to hold fundraisers to pay for uniforms and equipment, while the boys’ sports teams were essentially showered with money.
And when the soccer team had the opportunity to make cash during its biggest games, the school’s principal, Gregg Morton, declared that admission would be free, over Heise’s objection, she alleges.
She also said that her players were snubbed during a banquet and not given the awards they’d earned while the boys received their accolades. The girls had to retrieve their awards from the athletic department the next day. And while the boys’ trophies are “prominently displayed at the school, women’s are not,” the suit states.
Jake Moore, an attorney for the school district, told The State newspaper, “To my knowledge, none of the accusations are true.
“But if we did something wrong, we’ll fix it,” he added.
Stocking all restrooms with toilet paper would be a good start.
