Post by spreadattack on Jun 22, 2007 7:44:46 GMT -6
www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/sports/football/22recruit.html?ex=1340164800&en=69a3e520bf230958&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
June 22, 2007
Court Rules Coach’s Violations Are Not a Form of Free Speech
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, June 21 — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the claim by a high school football powerhouse in Tennessee that its coach’s recruiting violations were a form of free speech that could not be penalized by the state athletic association.
The 9-to-0 opinion removed a cloud over the ability of school sports associations to impose recruiting rules on their member schools and to punish violators. The dispute between the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and Brentwood Academy, a private Christian prep school that has won 10 state football championships, goes back 10 years, when a group of eighth-grade boys who had not yet enrolled at the school received letters from “your coach” urging them to come out for spring practice.
There was no dispute at the court that the letter violated the state association’s no-recruiting rule. The question for the justices was whether, as two lower federal courts had decided, the rule violated Brentwood’s right to free speech as protected by the First Amendment.
It did not, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the Supreme Court, because “Brentwood made a voluntary decision to join” the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and to abide by its rules.
“It is only fair that Brentwood follow them,” he said.
Stevens added that the rule in question reflected a “common-sense conclusion that hard-sell tactics directed at middle school students could lead to exploitation, distort competition between high school teams, and foster an environment in which athletics are prized more highly than academics.”
While ruling for the association, the justices did not accept its further invitation to revisit an earlier decision that had elevated the controversy to one of constitutional dimensions.
Six years ago, the Supreme Court held that while the association was nominally private, its operations were so intertwined with government functions as to make it a “state actor,” subject to the Constitution’s restraints as a government agency would be. Groups representing girls and women in sports had feared that they would be hampered in their ability to challenge unequal treatment if the court relieved high school sports associations from having to follow the Constitution.
The decision did not affect the N.C.A.A.; the Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that the N.C.A.A. did not operate as a “state actor” when it ordered Nevada-Las Vegas to suspend its basketball coach, Jerry Tarkanian, for violations of various N.C.A.A. rules.
June 22, 2007
Court Rules Coach’s Violations Are Not a Form of Free Speech
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, June 21 — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the claim by a high school football powerhouse in Tennessee that its coach’s recruiting violations were a form of free speech that could not be penalized by the state athletic association.
The 9-to-0 opinion removed a cloud over the ability of school sports associations to impose recruiting rules on their member schools and to punish violators. The dispute between the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and Brentwood Academy, a private Christian prep school that has won 10 state football championships, goes back 10 years, when a group of eighth-grade boys who had not yet enrolled at the school received letters from “your coach” urging them to come out for spring practice.
There was no dispute at the court that the letter violated the state association’s no-recruiting rule. The question for the justices was whether, as two lower federal courts had decided, the rule violated Brentwood’s right to free speech as protected by the First Amendment.
It did not, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the Supreme Court, because “Brentwood made a voluntary decision to join” the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and to abide by its rules.
“It is only fair that Brentwood follow them,” he said.
Stevens added that the rule in question reflected a “common-sense conclusion that hard-sell tactics directed at middle school students could lead to exploitation, distort competition between high school teams, and foster an environment in which athletics are prized more highly than academics.”
While ruling for the association, the justices did not accept its further invitation to revisit an earlier decision that had elevated the controversy to one of constitutional dimensions.
Six years ago, the Supreme Court held that while the association was nominally private, its operations were so intertwined with government functions as to make it a “state actor,” subject to the Constitution’s restraints as a government agency would be. Groups representing girls and women in sports had feared that they would be hampered in their ability to challenge unequal treatment if the court relieved high school sports associations from having to follow the Constitution.
The decision did not affect the N.C.A.A.; the Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that the N.C.A.A. did not operate as a “state actor” when it ordered Nevada-Las Vegas to suspend its basketball coach, Jerry Tarkanian, for violations of various N.C.A.A. rules.
