Girls can opt out of playing against boys and vice versa without any penalty, according to a new policy approved by the Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee says.
The new policy comes in the wake of a female Dighton-Rehoboth field hockey player sustaining serious injuries this past fall after getting hit with a ball struck by a male player, as NewBostonPost previously reported.
Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey said the school district took action because the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association did not.
“My perspective is that I applaud our School Committee for taking this step in the absence of substantive action by the MIAA,” Runey told NewBostonPost by email, with emphasis in the original. “Player safety must be of paramount importance, and the elevated risk of injury when boys compete against girls is a grave concern of ours. I was hopeful that the MIAA would implement additional safety precautions, but there has been no noteworthy progress on that front. We are choosing safety over victory.”
The school committee voted 10-0 for the new policy at its meeting Tuesday, June 25, 2024.
The Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School Committee believes that students will benefit from the experiences in self-discipline and team effort made possible through participation in inter-school sports.
Participation in interscholastic athletics will be subject to approval by the School Committee and will be in accordance with regulations and recommendations of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.
At the high school level, interscholastic athletic competition will include a variety of sports. Students will be allowed to participate in individual sports on the basis of their abilities and desire. Additionally, intramural athletic activities may be offered as an outgrowth of class instruction in physical education.
The School Committee is aware that team participation in athletic contests by members of the student body requires that “away games” be scheduled. It also recognizes that there is a need to regulate certain aspects of student participation in such contests. Therefore, the Superintendent will establish regulations to ensure the safety and well being of students and staff members who participate in these activities.
No coach of a single-sex team shall be penalized by the District for forfeiting a match against an opposing team because such team includes athletes of the opposite sex.
No student athlete on a single-sex team shall be penalized by the District in any manner for refusing to play in a match, or any part thereof, against an opposing team because that team includes a member of the opposite sex. For the purposes of this paragraph, a “penalty” includes but is not limited to loss of playing time or loss of starting status.
Runey also said that, along with athletic director Matt McKinnon, he plans to meet with field hockey coaches, families, and players to answer questions about the policy.
Dighton-Rehoboth is a regional public high school of about 630 students that serves two towns about 35 miles south of Boston.
In its 2-1 loss to Swampscott in the MIAA Division 3 Round of 32 matchup against Swampscott on Thursday, November 2, 2023, a girl on the Dighton-Rehoboth team got seriously hurt. Swampscott High captain and Northeastern Conference All-Star Sawyer Groothuis, a boy, drilled a girl in the face with a shot.
The female player suffered dental and facial injuries, requiring her to go to the hospital, Dighton-Rehoboth superintendent Bill Runey confirmed in a letter to parents in November 2023.
Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee chairman Christopher Andrade told New Boston Post that the committee “has serious concerns over the lack of reasonable policy for the safety of female athletes” who participate in sports governed by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.
“Superintendent Runey reached out to the MIAA and other stakeholders, but MIAA refused to make any significant policy changes in order to protect female athletes from males competing in female sports,” Andrade said by email.
“As such,” he continued, “the committee has updated its policy granting additional authority to athletes and their coaches to withdraw from co-op matches where the athletes do not feel safe and/or otherwise feel that competing with biological males in a female sport is not a fair or competitive match.”
He added: “The Committee takes this issue very seriously and until the MIAA adjusts its policies to come into alignment with Title IX of the federal Civil Rights act, the Committee is advocating that other school districts who are part of the MIAA review and make similar adjustments to bring safe and fair competition to our high school female athletes.”
Shortly after the injury occurred in November 2023, Kelsey Bain, a captain of the Dighton-Rehoboth team, wrote an open letter to the MIAA demanding change.
Citing a NewBostonPost story about a boy excelling for the Norwell High girls’ volleyball team, Bain noted that there were 41 boys on MIAA field hockey teams during the fall 2019 season.
Field hockey is a girls’ sport in Massachusetts. But Bain said the MIAA should make boys’ field hockey teams a reality so girls can play against other girls without competing against boys.
“We all witnessed the substantial damage that a male has the ability to cause against a female during a game,” Bain wrote. “How much longer does the MIAA plan on using girls as statistical data points before they realize that boys do not belong in girls’ sports? Twenty injuries? One hundred? Death?”
The Dighton-Rehoboth field hockey team faced at least three teams that had boys last season. Somerset-Berkeley and Durfee had male players that were starters, in addition to Swampscott, as NewBostonPost previously reported. Dighton-Rehoboth went 0-4-1 in those three games, contributing to the majority of its losses during a season in which the team went 7-6-5.
Massachusetts is the only state where boys not only can play high school field hockey with the girls but do every year and make major impacts on their respective teams.
The state allows boys like Groothius to play because of the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. In it, the court ruled that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policy of the time thatstated “No boy may play on a girls’team” was unlawful because in the court’sview it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.
The Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution states:
All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.
The concept of an Equal Rights Amendment was relatively new at the time. It passed at the ballot in the November 1976 general election with 60.4 percent supporting and 39.6 percent opposing, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Every single county voted in favor of the proposed amendment.
A press spokesman for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association told NewBostonPost via email that it won’t interfere with the new policy.
“The decision by the Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee was a local decision, and as such, the MIAA does not involve itself in local policy,” the association spokesman wrote. “The D-R membership and participation in the MIAA has always been valued, and we will continue to serve them and all our member schools and districts as a resource.”
A video of the incident that prompted this policy is available below:
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Photo by Raul Lieberwirth / Flickr 
