In response to a complaint filed this summer with the state’s Department of Civil Rights, the CAAC will begin rotating its Friday night basketball schedules starting with the 2010-11 season.
Currently, both boys and girls varsity teams play doubleheaders, girls first followed by the boys. That will remain the same this winter, but flip after that, with boys first and girls second. They will then alternate yearly which plays first.
The complaint was filed by the Michigan Women’s Commission and alleged that the CAAC discriminated against girls by scheduling them first during Friday doubleheaders, while giving the boys games the “primetime” slot.
“We were concerned about the negative impact female athletes could suffer. Do college recruiters and scouts see them at those times? Do the girls’ programs have equal visibility with the boys’ programs? These were some of the questions the Women’s Commission based our civil rights complaint on,” said Judy Karandjeff, Executive Director, Michigan Women’s Commission, in a press release.
Grand Ledge athletic director Gary Boyce, this school year’s CAAC president, said the league decided to go with an alternating format endorsed by the National Federation of High School Associations for cross country. The MWC wanted to flip the basketball schedules starting this season, but the CAAC said it was too late to do so because games and their referees had already been scheduled for this winter.
Boyce said the CAAC considered other options, including going with freshman/junior varsity/varsity tripleheaders at opposite sites similar to what the programs play on Tuesdays.
Boyce said the league didn’t fight the complaint because it felt doing so might lead to further action and “this wasn’t going to go away.” Girls basketball moved from fall to winter before the 2007-08 school year after the Michigan High School Athletic Association lost a gender equity lawsuit.
At that time, based on the opinion of its girls basketball coaches, the CAAC scheduled their games first on Fridays. The coaches reaffirmed that desire again before last season.
High school sports editor 
