School Refuses To Let Boy Join Cheerleading Squad

[Baconsticks]

[quote]GLENDALE, Ky. -- Bobby Thorn wanted to be the only boy on his school's cheerleading squad, but that didn't happen.

The 13-year-old attends East Hardin Middle School in Glendale, but the controversial decision to cut him from the team expands beyond the district's boundaries.

Bobby's mother filed a discrimination claim with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights two years ago, and now a settlement has been reached.

Bobby works with coach Jen Brewer at a gym called Becca's Fliptown, something he's been doing since he was about 5. He's been successful, too, winning trophies for gymnastics and cheerleading.

“Bobby's phenomenal,â€

[rabid_fox]

Tsk. Just...bloody well tsk.

I'd say that the boy and his mother need a firm slap from the Glove of Reality, but in truth, I'm the one that needs said slap, because this is how the world works these days.

Berloody spitfires.

[Extreme-Speed]

So, it works for both genders then? People get in trouble for not letting girls join hockey teams as well as not letting boys join cheerleading teams? Okay, that's fair, I guess.

[rabid_fox]

Interesting side point - over here, hockey is near-exclusively a girl's sport.

[Steve the Pocket]

I think there are actual laws set up to protect real sports teams from having to go co-ed. Because I know there's a law that requires schools to have the same number of all-female teams as all-male teams, without regard to the sport in question. How cheerleading factors into this, I have no clue.

Not that some wouldn't say cheerleading isn't a sexist institution anyway. What with those skimpy outfits and all.

[Sage]

That reminds me of the time when my friend was given a speech in the school auditorium about some guy who wanted to marry himself. The person speaking said that if it makes you happy then you have the right to do it.

Promptly, having really bad aspergers, he blurted out "So if I walk into school naked with a gun screaming, and it makes me happy, it's perfectly fine!"

Obviously he had counsellings...

Anyways... yes?

[Hanging Tree]

I think there are actual laws set up to protect real sports teams from having to go co-ed. Because I know there's a law that requires schools to have the same number of all-female teams as all-male teams, without regard to the sport in question. How cheerleading factors into this, I have no clue.

Not that some wouldn't say cheerleading isn't a sexist institution anyway. What with those skimpy outfits and all.

The rule works is that if there is no gender specific team then you have to let the teams be co-ed. For example a girl can't join the boy's basketball team if there is a girl's team, but a girl can join the football team.


I am dissapointed that the woman in question took money from the school. Schools are poorly funded as it is without lawsuits. She already made a change in policy and probably got the coach fired, she should have left it at that rather then being greedy.

[Tom Flapwell]

Women's teams should get male cheerleaders. Just to balance the equation.

[rabid_fox]

Or drop the whole bloody cheerleading thing entirely. Lord knows we get on fine without them over here. Load of palaver - half-time is for sprinting to the chip van, getting a suspiciously chewy burger, sprinting to the pisswall and holding your lad in one hand cause you're still eating your burger, trying to figure out the "Put away, zip up" equation one-handed and sprinting back to your place in the stands to shout abuse at the other team when the reappear.

Cheerleaders. Pah.

[Extreme-Speed]

That reminds me of the time when my friend was given a speech in the school auditorium about some guy who wanted to marry himself. The person speaking said that if it makes you happy then you have the right to do it.

Promptly, having really bad aspergers, he blurted out "So if I walk into school naked with a gun screaming, and it makes me happy, it's perfectly fine!"

Obviously he had counsellings...

Anyways... yes?

In my school, that would just make most people laugh and regard him as a clown. But then, at my school, nobody but the counselor takes "respect" assemblies or anything very seriously.

[klimt]

[quote]
The school also agreed to pay $3,000 to Bobby's mother.

“It was a long process, but I knew in my heart I did the right thing for my child to tell him not to back down,â€

[Kazapsky]

My high school never needed any blasted cheerleaders, let alone an actual cheerleading coach. Neither does the college I presently attend.

Total waste of resources. Schools have no business crying about lack of funding when they're squandering away what they do get.

[Hanging Tree]

I don't like cheerleading but its as much as a sport as anything else. You can't very well end the cheerleading program without ending every other sport.


Besides most schools don't pay much for sports. Most of the money comes from fundraises or donations.

[Kazapsky]

Cheerleading isn't a sport, it's a performance art. You hop around making yourself look ridiculous in hopes it will entertain the audience; the only difference is that in this case your act is a distraction from what the audience came to see rather than the actual event.

[nickspoon]

Cheerleading isn't a sport, it's a performance art. You hop around making yourself look ridiculous in hopes it will entertain the audience; the only difference is that in this case your act is a distraction from what the audience came to see rather than the actual event.

Whether it's a sport or a performance art, it ought to be funded just as much as any other. There's nothing about (to take a mentioned example) hockey which makes it intrinsically better than cheerleading.