forward by Arthur Miller ([email protected]) By The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of Oglala Sioux girls who were required to prove their gender before playing in a 1995 basketball tournament in Rapid City, S.D., lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday. The court, without comment, refused to revive a lawsuit by the girls and their mothers against the tournament's sponsor, their school and others. The lawsuit, contending that the incident left the girls depressed and embarrassed, sought to collect monetary damages for racial and sexual discrimination, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and mental anguish. Lower courts threw out the lawsuit. The girls, all 10 to 12 years old at the time, represented the Pine Ridge Reservation's Loneman School in a tournament sponsored by the Young Men's Christian Association. After the Loneman team won a semifinal game against the Hermosa School, that team's coach complained that one or more of the Loneman squad's eight members were really boys. Before the championship game, the eight Loneman team members were taken into a restroom where the girls demonstrated that each was in fact a female. The 1997 lawsuit named the YMCA, the Loneman School, the Custer School District (where the Hermosa School is located) and various individuals as defendants. A federal trial judge dismissed the case after ruling, among other things, that the girls and their mothers had failed to offer any proof of racial or sexual bias. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal last November. The appeal acted on Monday argued that the girls and their mothers were not given enough time to gather evidence that might have pointed to racial and sexual discrimination. "No other teams were subjected to the search. ... The Indian coach's word that his players were female was not sufficient to end the matter when challenged by a white team and coach," the appeal said. The case is Davenport v. YMCA, 99-1732.
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