A LOSING GAME
When Sydney Phillips’ parents sued the school that wouldn’t let her play boys basketball, everyone suffered defeat
Actions have consequences. And legal actions can have big consequences. That’s the lesson that Sydney Phillips and her family got this week when she and her younger sister were expelled from St. Theresa School in Kenilworth, NJ.
This past fall, Sydney, a rising basketball star, had wanted to play for her school. Not enough female St. Theresa students were interested to form a girls team, so she asked to play with the boys. The Archdiocese of Newark, which oversees the Catholic school, denied her request, saying it is committed to having separate boys and girls squads. A Newark Superior Court judge said the archdiocese was right, noting that because the school was religious, it was not subject to the same anti-discrimination laws as other schools. But the family appealed.
During that time, the family received a letter from an Archdiocese of Newark lawyer saying both Sydney, 12, and her sister, Kaitlyn, should not attend St. Theresa “tomorrow morning or any day thereafter.”
On Friday, a court said the school has to take the girls back.
But why? Here is a family that decided to send its daughters to a Catholic school, and when the administration acted in accordance with how it interprets Catholic values, the family took its objections to court. There, the family cost the school (which is pretty small to begin with) and the diocese (which struggles to offer a decent education to impoverished families throughout the area) thousands of dollars in legal bills.
Funding at Catholic schools is limited, and if sports are your priority, maybe you should consider going to a public school instead.
Indeed, one assumes that the Phillips family, which resides in Scotch Plains (average household income: $159,275), would find itself in the vicinity of other good public and private options for its daughters. But the Phillips family did not want to sacrifice its own comfort and desires for the sake of a community’s well-being.
Rather, the lessons that Scott Phillips and his wife, Theresa Mullen, have chosen to teach their children and others in the community is that they are entitled to special considerations, and when they aren’t granted, they should take the offending institution to court.
But lawsuits have costs beyond financial ones. They also divide communities. Parents interviewed about the matter by the news site NJ.com came down on both sides. One mother said she didn’t think the school should send the message that “it was OK to be divided by gender.” Another noted, “It wasn’t like she was prevented from being on a girls basketball team. There no girls basketball team.” Either way, most parents don’t like their children’s schools to be the subject of public scrutiny. And things can get much worse. In South Bend, Ind., for instance, the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit last year on behalf of a parent who wanted a live Nativity scene removed from a school’s winter holiday celebration. The suit has resulted in threats of violence from people on both sides of the issue.
It’s not that there’s never a good reason for a community to argue over a conflict. Sometimes lawsuits are necessary in order to achieve justice, but in recent years we have been plagued by frivolous legal actions. And it’s hard to see how it’s worth tearing towns apart because a baker won’t cater your wedding. But there seems to be a kind of scorched-earth policy adopted by plaintiffs: If I can’t have my way, I’m going to take everyone down with me.
Live and let live doesn’t seem to be an option anymore. Nor is there any acknowledgment that sometimes, when individuals choose to be a part of the community, they occasionally have to subvert their own interests. The Phillips’ lawyer told a judge that Sydney could “boost morale [on the boys team] and allow them to win a couple of games.” While winning games may be the goal of the Phillips family, St. Theresa clearly believes there are other things that are more important.
As for Sydney, it’s clear she’s going to land on her feet. The WNBA’s New York Liberty team invited her to its practice facility in Tarrytown, Westchester County, after seeing the stories about her. Needless to say, that’s not good enough for her father, who said, before the expulsion was reversed: “I don’t know what we’re going to do next, but we’re still going to fight.”
Presumably, the fight to get his daughter a place on a boys basketball team will continue. But if Scott Phillips wants his daughter to achieve success both on the court and off, he should teach her that choosing to be a part of a community means choosing to live with certain rules. He might also set an example of losing with dignity.