ST. LOUIS _ The mother of a 16-year-old boy at Ladue Horton Watkins High School has sued the district because her son didn't make the soccer team.
The woman, named in court papers as Jane Doe, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri last week. She and the boy's stepfather, who is a lawyer handling the case, want a judge to issue a temporary restraining order against the district and put him on the junior varsity soccer team.
The woman says her son, a junior in high school who played JV soccer for Ladue last year, tried out for the soccer team in August. He didn't make the varsity team.
The family accepts that, but they are upset he wasn't then named to the junior varsity team. The family says they were told that juniors aren't put on JV; the district gives preference on JV to freshmen and sophomores who have more years to polish their talents.
The family says that's age discrimination.
The district historically lets female juniors play on the girls' JV team, according to the suit. The boy's family says that's not fair treatment of the sexes.
"We're not saying put him on varsity; we've never said that," the stepfather says. "We just say put him on junior varsity."
After a court hearing Friday, both sides are awaiting a decision on the temporary restraining order from District Court Judge John A. Ross. The judge told the lawyers that he would decide Monday.
The boy's stepfather said the problem goes beyond Ladue.
"There are many schools across the country that have this policy that you either make varsity as a junior or you're out of the program," he said. "And that's an illegal policy. If someone said 'Cut all the blacks,' that would be illegal. And it's illegal for age too."
Celynda Brasher, the lead attorney for the Ladue School District, declined comment. She said the district's policy is not to talk about pending litigation.
But in court filings, the district says the boy was not put on JV again because it "was not best for the competitive development of the players or the program." The district also says that being on a sports team is a privilege, not a right, for the students. The students don't have a constitutionally protected right to be on a team, the district argues.
"There is no evidence that the decision was based on the student's age or that the decision was otherwise unfair," Derrick Wallace, director of student services for Ladue schools, said in a letter that has been filed in court.
The suit also alleges that Dave Aronberg, the head soccer coach, favored students who attended his summer soccer camps, and paid him a fee _ something the suit alleges is a "pay to play" scheme.
The district says that not everyone who attended the coach's voluntary camp (18 sessions at $15 per session) made a soccer team. In fact, the district says, seven students made a team without having attended summer camps.
In her court filing, the boy's mother asked the judge for permission to identify her son by the pseudonym John Doe because, in "challenging the actions of a popular coach," she feared her son would be subjected to bullying and harassment if people knew his real name. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is not naming his stepfather, a lawyer handling the suit, because it would identify the teen.
The boy didn't make any team as a freshman, the stepfather said. He said the family didn't complain then. "We told him to man up and up his game," the lawyer says. "He had to develop his game."
The family hired a private coach for the boy, he joined a St. Louis club team, and he improved, his stepfather said. He was one of the leading scorers on junior varsity last year. The stepfather said he is going to file court papers under seal naming other players who made varsity "with way worse stats" than the boy who was cut.
The coach told the boy's stepfather, in an email filed with the court, that there were 40 students trying out for 24 spots on varsity. The coach lauded John Doe's maturity and said the boy was "right on the bubble," the coach said, and had some impressive soccer attributes such as "his attacking mentality and straight line speed."
However, the coach went on to say that the boy had a "few holes in his game," including technical ability, and that other kids had better skill and "soccer IQ."
The stepfather said the coach's decision has left the boy humiliated.
"Everyone is under the impression that he is a poor player and we're a bunch of crybabies," the stepfather said. "But no. He had a successful season last year, and from the statistics, it appears he should have made varsity. This suit is about Ladue refusing to follow the law with respect to age discrimination."
The family first appealed the coach's ruling to district administrators, who sided with the coach. The family then appealed to the superintendent, who also sided with the coach. The family then filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, but the office couldn't force the school to put the boy on a team. So the family turned to federal court.
The stepfather is one of two attorneys who filed the suit. He said his firm has already racked up about $100,000 in attorney's fees, as he has been working on the case since August. The soccer season is half over.
