The following piece is by Blaire Jedlicka, a 9th grader at Little Rock Central High and a player on the school’s softball team. Central’s softball players are actively fighting for equal treatment under Title IX, a 1972 education policy that prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating based on sex.
You can’t think of Little Rock Central High School without thinking of the Little Rock Nine and the significant role that those brave students played in the fight for civil rights in the US.
Central’s historic legacy is one of the many reasons that I chose to attend Central. Wearing the Central black and gold makes me feel like a small piece of that history and now that pride is giving me the conviction to make another push for civil rights at Central as the softball team faces Title IX violations.
Our Title IX complaint centers around the fact that LRSD spent $5M renovating the Central baseball field earlier this year, while the softball team has endured years of playing offsite, on various shared fields. We now play at a low quality, off campus field at Interstate Park.
The common narrative is that the existing baseball field had to be renovated because it was located directly between the two new buildings that were built at Central High. The field had to be used as a construction and parking area during the building process. While that narrative sounds reasonable, it misses the heart of the matter.
In 2021 LRSD proposed a millage extension with specific plans for renovations at Central High to address classroom space and athletic facility upgrades. Luckily, the millage passed with resounding support, and LRSD began the planning and construction of the promised upgrades. Five years later, when construction was complete, Central’s athletic facilities had dramatically improved. The upgrades included a 40-yard indoor football practice field, five boy’s locker rooms, and a $5M baseball field. It also included one girl’s locker room that doesn’t have enough lockers for all six teams that have to share it.
This is why Title IX is necessary. It upholds the value of every athlete and ensures every one of us is treated fairly.
Tens of millions of dollars – and years – of planning went into this athletic facility upgrade. Dozens, if not hundreds of people made and approved the designs. But not once during the process did anyone think about the blatant differences between what the boys and girls would receive in the new athletic facilities. Not the LRSD school board, not the Central High administrators, athletic directors or coaches, not the LRSD leadership or facilities staff, not the architects. Not one person sounded the alarm. This is why Title IX is necessary. It upholds the value of every athlete and ensures every one of us is treated fairly.
Last month, my teammates and our parents spoke to the current school board about our concerns and explained the safety, transportation, time loss, coaching availability and field condition issues.
The school board and Dr. Wright, the LRSD superintendent, were apologetic for our struggles, supportive of making changes, and pledged to work on a “Title IX mitigation plan”.
While we are deeply grateful and truly felt their support, I am concerned that the proposed mitigation plan will not satisfy the demands or the spirit of Title IX.
Currently, the proposed short-term solution is to share the new baseball field for the 2027 season. While I understand the need for a short-term solution, the proposal does not address any long-term solutions or timelines.
The current proposal would require the softball team to set up and tear down an outfield fence, a backstop, a pitchers mound and the bases before and after every practice. Scheduling issues would run rampant, as our athletic director pointed out, and we would always be second priority to baseball. We’ve shared fields in the past and struggled with scheduling issues which forced us to miss practice time and even move home games to our competitors’ home fields. Furthermore, sharing with the baseball team wouldn’t solve our issues with locker room access.
Short term solutions aren’t the answer; they are a bandaid. Title IX exists to ensure that girls receive equality with boys. Equality in this situation would have been to consider the girls’ needs 5 years ago in the planning stage. Instead, the priorities were identified, choices were made, and the money was spent on male athletes, not female ones.
The boys were deemed to be worth $5 million of upgrades. How much are the girls worth? There is only one equitable solution: a new on-campus softball field with the same state of the art turf and private locker room that the boys were deemed worthy of.
