Philobiblon

Some of America’s cheerleaders are being legally forced to cheer for girls’ teams as well as boys’ – and it seems quite a few of them are unhappy about it.

Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls’ games in late November, after the mother of a female basketball player in Johnson City, N.Y., filed a discrimination complaint with the United States Department of Education. She said the lack of official sideline support made the girls seem like second-string, and violated Title IX’s promise of equal playing fields for both sexes….
Rosie Pudish, the parent who filed the original complaint,… said that as many as 60 cheerleaders, along with their friends and parents, would attend the boys’ games, injecting a level of excitement and spirit that was missing from the girls’ contests.
“It sends the wrong message that girls are second-class athletes and don’t deserve the school spirit, that they’re just little girls playing silly games and the real athletes are the boys,” said Ms. Pudish, an accountant who works for the federal government.

Sounds entirely reasonable to me – although I wonder where are the male cheerleaders, if it is, as its defenders claim, such an athletic and interesting activity.