Once upon a time, boys and girls were expected to follow strict gender stereotypes: action figures for boys, dolls for girls, police costumes for boys, nurse costumes for girls, etc.
Fortunately, we've come a long way since those days, with today's boys and girls able to largely determine their destinies according to their own individual talents and interests, regardless of gender. In this present era of such extraordinary freedom of choice and gender equality, it would seem totally out of bounds for the government to discriminate against boys or girls based on their gender.
But for Superior High School student Kaiden Johnson, that's what apparently has happened ("Boy challenges girls-only dance competition rule," Oct. 11, and, "SHS dance team booted from Minnesota conference," Oct. 22).
Kaiden, who started dancing at the age of 5, tried out for and made Superior High School's varsity dance team as a freshman. Superior High, although located in Wisconsin, mostly competes with Minnesota schools in the Lake Superior Conference of the Minnesota State High School League, or MSHSL.
At a dance competition at Superior High last December, MSHSL judges denied Kaiden the opportunity to compete with the rest of his team solely because he is a boy. Since an MSHSL bylaw designates dance as a girls-only sport, Kaiden was singled out for being male and forced to sit on the sidelines and watch while the rest of his team performed.
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When asked about this experience of clear discrimination, Kaiden said, "I just felt left out. I practiced about 12 hours a week for multiple weeks, and then once we went to this competition and I was told I couldn't dance, I just felt just like I was useless and that all that work that I put in was wasted."
By enforcing the bylaw that many consider discriminatory, MSHSL violated Kaiden's constitutional right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
For the government to justify a sex-based classification under the equal protection clause, it must have an exceedingly persuasive reason for doing so. But in Kaiden's case, the only reason MSHSL could possibly have for restricting high school dance to girls is the outdated stereotype that "boys shouldn't dance."
Given films like "Footloose" and performers from Fred Astaire to Minnesota's very own Prince, it's questionable whether this boys-shouldn't-dance stereotype was even persuasive decades ago. Regardless, it's certainly no longer persuasive in 2017.
Besides, the very same MSHSL bylaw that bars boys from dancing allows girls to compete in football. Double standard much?
Fortunately, attorneys from the Pacific Legal Foundation, the nonprofit where I work, which is dedicated to enforcing the Constitution's protections for personal liberties, heard about Kaiden's story and is representing him for free. On Oct. 10, Pacific Legal Foundation sent a letter to MSHSL Executive Director David Stead requesting that MSHSL rescind its discriminatory bylaw so Kaiden and any other Minnesota boy seeking to compete in high school dance may do so.
Whether you're a boy or a girl, you can agree that blatant sex-based discrimination has no place in 2017. So, MSHSL, let the boys dance.
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Robby Fountain of Sacramento, Calif., is a legal researcher for Pacific Legal Foundation (pacificlegal.org). The nonprofit is representing Superior High School student Kaiden Johnson.
