D.M. v. Minnesota State High School League, No. 18-3077 (8th Cir. 2019)
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Two male students filed suit against Minnesota's high school athletic league and others, alleging that the league unlawfully discriminated against them on the basis of sex through its rule prohibiting boys from participating on high school competitive dance teams. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the students' motion for preliminary injunction and directed the district court to enter a preliminary injunction.
The court held that the heightened, likely-to-prevail standard did not apply to the boys' preliminary injunction motion, but instead, whether the boys have a fair chance of prevailing. On the merits, the court held that the boys had more than a fair chance of prevailing on the merits of their equal protection claim where the league has not asserted an exceedingly persuasive justification for keeping them from participating on high school competitive dance teams. Furthermore, the remaining Dataphase factors favored a preliminary injunction.
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Court Description: Melloy, Author, with Loken and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Title IX. In action by two boys alleging the defendants violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by prohibiting them from participating in high school competitive dance teams, the district court erred in denying the boys' motion for a preliminary injunction; in determining whether the boys were likely to prevail on the merits, the district court erred in applying the heightened, likely-to-prevail standard and should have reviewed the questions under the fair-chance-of-prevailing standard; while girls historically have been underrepresented in high school athletics, over the past five years, the representation of girls in Minnesota high schools is almost directly proportional to their enrollment; the defendant has not shown, therefore, that the underlying problem it sought to remedy by creating all-girl teams - underrepresentation of girls in athletics - continues to exist in Minnesota; without a problem to remedy, the defendant cannot prohibit the boys' participation on girls' team without some exceedingly persuasive justification for doing so, and none has been offered; as a result, the boys have a more than fair chance of prevailing on their claim and, as they had established all of the other Dataphase factors, they were entitled to a preliminary injunction.
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