The Pittsburgh newspapers are breathlessly reporting today about a lawsuit filed by a number of girls who played on a local high school volleyball team.
It seems that the coach was something of an asshole. He gave some of the girls nicknames that they considered sexual (these have not been disclosed yet), he made lewd jokes in the course of his coaching, and in a couple of instances he is accused of touching players in an inappropriate way. Once or twice he grabbed his crotch in the course of making a comment to the team.
Although I don't know exactly what the "inappropriate touching" was, the district attorney was brought in, and s/he concluded that there was nothing that was criminal in nature.
Title IX is the common name for a federal law that, in effect and among many other things, prohibits schools from discriminating against girls/women in the administration of their athletic programs.
So the girls are suing for money damages. The coach has already resigned. The theory of the suit is that this coach was the subject of a similar complaint in another school district in 1995, so the school district was negligent in hiring the guy, and that negligence was the proximate cause of the girls' "damages."
This is not something that makes me proud to be an American. These girls were apparently made to blush on a couple of occasions, and now the taxpayers and the District's insurance carriers are being asked to cough up thousands of dollars to help these little twinkies recover from the harm of having been made to blush.
In the broader context, what is wrong with us as a Society where we constantly seek out cash payments for "insults" that involve no actual damage, but merely the kind of things that people have to deal with in the normal course of living their lives outside their mothers' wombs?
In this case, fifteen minutes of good parenting could resolve any and all "damages" that the girls experienced or incurred. A pox on the parents, and the lawyers who represent them.
It seems that the coach was something of an asshole. He gave some of the girls nicknames that they considered sexual (these have not been disclosed yet), he made lewd jokes in the course of his coaching, and in a couple of instances he is accused of touching players in an inappropriate way. Once or twice he grabbed his crotch in the course of making a comment to the team.
Although I don't know exactly what the "inappropriate touching" was, the district attorney was brought in, and s/he concluded that there was nothing that was criminal in nature.
Title IX is the common name for a federal law that, in effect and among many other things, prohibits schools from discriminating against girls/women in the administration of their athletic programs.
So the girls are suing for money damages. The coach has already resigned. The theory of the suit is that this coach was the subject of a similar complaint in another school district in 1995, so the school district was negligent in hiring the guy, and that negligence was the proximate cause of the girls' "damages."
This is not something that makes me proud to be an American. These girls were apparently made to blush on a couple of occasions, and now the taxpayers and the District's insurance carriers are being asked to cough up thousands of dollars to help these little twinkies recover from the harm of having been made to blush.
In the broader context, what is wrong with us as a Society where we constantly seek out cash payments for "insults" that involve no actual damage, but merely the kind of things that people have to deal with in the normal course of living their lives outside their mothers' wombs?
In this case, fifteen minutes of good parenting could resolve any and all "damages" that the girls experienced or incurred. A pox on the parents, and the lawyers who represent them.
