Gender equality vs. faith in high school sports

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/06/2015 (3563 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Here’s a combination soccer/education controversy that’s yet to happen in Manitoba — but it could just be a matter of time.

It’s all over the Ontario media, a high school boys’ soccer tournament in which two girls were entitled to play on their high school team, and their opponent was a Muslim private high school which said its faith did not allow the boys on its team to be in physical contact with the girls on the other team.

You can read the Hamilton Spectator’s story.

Our faith-based private high schools do not yet include a Muslim school, but the Alhijra Islamic School in Winnipeg already has a handful of students in Grade 9.

And, of course, there are undoubtedly many Muslim kids on numerous high school and club soccer teams.

The girls in Ontario were entitled to play on the boys’ team, because their high school did not have a girls’ team this year, That’s the same rule that the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association has — if there’s no girls’ team, the girls are eligible to try out to play on the boys’ varsity team. In club soccer, you’ll occasionally see girls on boys’ teams.

MHSAA executive director Morris Glimcher told me that his Ontario counterparts contacted him after it hit the fan in Upper Canada.

“I think that you make the accommodation where possible, but this is two conflicting human rights issues,” said Glimcher. “Our current rules state that if a school does not have enough girls to form a girls’ team, then they may try out for the boys’ team. If they make it, then they would be eligible to play. I would assume, that at this point in time, all schools would be aware of eligibility regulations, and have the option of playing against other schools or not. As far as I know in the Ontario situation, the students met eligibility rules, and should be eligible to play.

“I guess that it will ultimately be a human rights challenge,” Glimcher said. “Right now, OFSAA and our rules are the same and the team is eligible. The girls chose to sit out, and I think that they should not have been put in that position. It is a very slippery slope and someone will have to decide what trumps what,” Glimcher said.