Yesterday, the Michigan Women's Commission and the Capital Area Activities Conference reached a settlement in a complaint filed with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights regarding the allegation of gender discrimination in the scheduling of high school athletic games. 

In June, the Michigan Women's Commission filed a formal civil rights complaint against the Capital Area Activities Conference. The Women's Commission was made aware that potential discrimination was taking place with regard to scheduling of boys' and girls' high school basketball earlier this year.

Girls' games are usually at 6 pm, and the boys' games are played at 7:30 pm. The allegation was based on the girls having less desirable game times. "The impact of the schedule was one of the issues the Department of Civil Rights was investigating," stated Harold Core, Department of Civil Rights Director of Public Affairs.

"We were concerned about the negative impact female athletes could suffer. Do college recruiters and scouts see them at those times? Do the girls' programs have equal visibility with the boys' programs? These were some of the questions the Women's Commission based our civil rights complaint on," said Judy Karandjeff, Executive Director, Michigan Women's Commission.

In the settlement, the Capital Area Activities Conference agreed to alternate the scheduling of boys' varsity basketball and girls' varsity basketball games during 'prime time'. So the boys will play in the 7:30 pm time slot one year and the varsity girls will play in the 7:30 pm time slot the next year, and so on, for as long as basketball games are scheduled according to sex/gender and level.

This change will take immediate effect. The boys' games will be in the 7:30 pm time slot for the 2009-2010 academic year, and the girls' games will be scheduled in the 7:30 pm time slot for the 2010-2011 academic year.

To learn more about the Michigan Women's Commission, go to http://www.michigan.gov/mdcr-mwc. To learn more about the Department of Civil Rights, please visit www.michigan.gov/mdcr.