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US high school team forfeits baseball game rather than play against a girl

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Naomi Wilcox
WVoN co-editor

A high school baseball team in Arizona forfeited the state championship final game because the opposing team included Paige Sultzbach, a 15-year-old girl.

The team, from Our Lady of Sorrows high school, refused to play Mesa Preparatory Academy’s team on the grounds that they would not play against any team with female players.

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the Society of St. Pius X, a conservative, traditionalist organisation which broke away from the Catholic church in the 1980s.

In a statement to FoxNews.com, the school said, “Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty. Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls.”

Sultzbach had agreed to sit out two earlier games against Our Lady of Sorrows in acknowledgement of their single-sex policy.

However, when her team reached the final, she and her teammates were determined she wouldn’t stay on the bench.  Due to the decision to forfeit, though, she was unable to play at all.

Her mother, Pamela Sultzbach, said to a local newspaper:

“This is not a contact sport; it shouldn’t be an issue. It wasn’t that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it’s that (they believe) a girl’s place is not on a field.”

This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of Title IX, a landmark piece of legislation which cleared the way for girls wishing to participate in sports and athletics in US schools.

This states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…”

It is this legislation that is to thank for Sultzbach being allowed to participate in a mixed-sex team at all, and it is heartening to note that it was Our Lady of Sorrow’s team that was forced to withdraw, rather than Sultzbach – as may well have been the case in previous generations.

“The very idea that such stereotypes are so strong, [that] they’d actually forfeit a game simply because a girl was on the field,” said Lisa Maatz of the American Association of University Women in an interview with ESPN.  “That’s ridiculous.”

Whether their decision to forfeit the game due to the presence of a female player really teaches the boys of Our Lady of Sorrows the “profound respect for women and girls” they hope to instill is entirely questionable.

As Hugo Schwyzer puts it in his thoughtful feature on the story:

“To respect women means to see their aspirations, their abilities, and their potential. Real respect means listening to what real women say. Paige Sulzbach [sic] says she can play with the boys; anyone who watches her can see she’s got the ability to do so.

“In forfeiting the game, Our Lady of Sorrows refused to look at Paige for who she is.  And the disrespect was entirely theirs.”

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