ASSIGNMENT FOR UNIT 4: “RIGHTS” AND SPORTS

For this fourth unit, you are to write a report on the following fictional scenario:

The University of Boca (UB), a Division I football power, has admitted two new student-athletes. The first player is John Adams, a linebacker. Adams is deaf and attended Gallaudet University, the national university for the deaf, for the last two years. He excelled at linebacker for Gallaudet, a Division III university. Adams communicates only via American Sign Language (ASL). He does not speak with his voice. He considers himself “only an average lip-reader.” On that same day as UB signed Adams, the team formally petitioned the National Collegiate Athletic Association to allow UB to provide Adams with a sign language interpreter on the field of play (Adams will be eligible to play next year after sitting out one year “in residence” per NCAA bylaws; this is irrelevant to your legal analysis of this case.) According to UB, the interpreter would stay in the huddle, interpret for Adams and then run off the field before the offensive snap. The NCAA denied UB’s request. Adams and UB together filed suit against the NCAA seeking a court’s order forcing the NCAA to permit a sign language interpreter in the huddle.

The second player is Rachel Zimmer, a women’s soccer player. Zimmer was a superstar soccer player at George Washington High School in New York, where she won the prestigious “Golden Boot” for Nation’s Best Female High School Soccer Player of the Year. UB has a student population that is exactly 50% male and 50% female; it has a student-athlete population that is 72% male and 28% female. When UB announces that it is dropping its women’s soccer program, Zimmer tells the football coach that she would like to try out for the team. He sees her and gives her a roster spot. After the third game, the head coach is fired and the new coach, Barry Bigot, kicks Zimmer off the team. In the locker room, Bigot screams at Zimmer, “No way am I having some Jew girl on this team!” Zimmer sues under Title IX and the Civil Rights Act.

Write a report giving the following for each of these cases:

1) Providing a complete overview of ADA, Title IX and Civil Rights Act, including research, using scholarly journals to assist in the full presentation of the laws;

2) Providing full research (Lexis/Nexis will be useful to you, as discussed in class) into at least three cases similar to cases at hand, critically evaluating and selecting only the three most relevant cases;

3) Specifying each of the legal elements of discrimination; and

4) Specifically applying elements of the discrimination to the facts of the case at hand, providing specific consideration to the issue of bias as we discussed in class.

The report shall be between 12-15 pages and is to be submitted in 12-point typed, double-spaced form. A report that does not follow this form will be deducted one point. The report requires citations to the three cases found in research as well as no fewer than three additional scholarly journals (law review articles are considered scholarly journals; “self-help” and other general web-based articles are not considered scholarly journals).