erhaps where excluding males is necessary to redress past inequality and to foster female participation” [16]The next sport to look at is Basketball. Basketball has also traditionally been regarded as a contact sport, and it falls victim to the same regulations and rules as football. However, unlike football, many schools offer a girls’ team. Whether or not a girl can go out for the boys’ team when a girls’ teams is provided is up to the school district. Courts have, however, prevented a female from forcing the issue and disallowed her, pursuant to the schools ruling, from playing on the boy’s team when a girls team was provided for her to play on. [19] Baseball is another popularly litigated sport. Baseball is one of the sports the jurisdictions are split over. Some jurisdictions make the sport a contact sport, and some do not. Many schools offer softball as the female equivalent of baseball, and while some courts have accepted this as the equal, some have not. It can be argued that there is a substantial difference in men’s “baseball” and women’s “softball”, since the two sports are played with a variety of differences. For example, the softball is much larger than the baseball and it thus easier to hit and catch. Also, softball if played with 4 “men” in the outfield instead of three, and is often played in seven inning intervals as opposed to baseball’s traditional nine. Upon close examination, it is obvious that the two sports are just that, two sports, two different sports. One court has agreed with this observation, in Israel v. Secondary Schools Activities ,388 S.E.2d 480, (W. VA. 1985), the Virginia court was careful to point out the differences in the two sports, and allowed the female plaintiffs to play men’s baseball. [20]Soccer, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey, and Rugby have all been ruled contact sports, as have wrestling and ...
