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Post by volleyguy on Oct 30, 2014 14:44:51 GMT -5
Whoever invented the saying "Fun in the Sun" is a moron. If you ask me, I think it's torture to stay under the sun for more than 5 minutes. You must be very pale.
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Post by iandyer on Oct 30, 2014 14:57:25 GMT -5
Volleyguy – I’ll try to answer your questions.
1. Why did the Asst Commissioner change her interpretation? (Did she make a mistake, not have all the information to make a conclusive interpretation, or was she over-ruled?)
We don’t know. I just know that CIF gave clear advice, then changed their position, lied and said they’d never given the initial advice, and then punished a lot of girls & their teams rather than admit their mistake.
In September, 2014, CIF-SS (Brandi Stuart & Kim Wilemon) consistently told me, Serrano HS Assistant Principal Lisa Hansen, and Becky Walley the same thing, that they didn’t consider beach volleyball a sport, that CIF didn’t regulate beach volleyball, and therefore that whatever an indoor volleyball athlete does on a beach volleyball court doesn’t violate Rule 600.
On 10/27/14, CIF said the opposite, that indoor volleyball girls playing 4man beach does violate Rule 600. Brandi & Kim then lied and said that’s what they always said. Unfortunately for them, they had lied to credible people who even documented the calls. All 3 parents independently received and transmitted the same answer from CIF. None of the 3 parents know each other.
2. What was the basis for issuing different suspensions (2 matches versus 4 matches.)
Brandi Stuart at CIF-SS said that since a girls indoor high school match has up to 5 sets, CIF would treat each 5 games at the 4man as 1 match. The 4man played games, not matches.
Two groups of girls received the 4 game suspension: A. Those whose pool had 5 teams and who also played 2 games out of pool (made the semis). B. Those whose pool had 4 teams and who also played 3 games out of pool (made the finals).
That is an unfair result. It treats two athletes differently when they played the same amount of volleyball. Here’s why. 3 games to 28 in a 4 team pool is the same as 4 games to 21 in a 5 team pool. That’s why tournaments are set up that way. It equalizes the amount of play that each team gets, whether they are in a 4 team pool or 5 team pool. So, it is an unequal punishment. Both my daughters’ teams got out of pool and played 2 bracket games. The one who was in a 5 team pool (4 games to 21, 84 points to win) played about the same as the one in the 4 team pool (3 games to 28, 84 points to win). The one in the 5 team pool is out for 4 matches, and the one in the 4 team pool is out for 4.
3. How and why were the decisions made so quickly after the event (apparently, one or two days later). Did someone file a complaint or was the CIF office already internally reconsidering the issue prior to the start of the tournament?
The day after the tournament, CIF said a parent had complained, that they had asked CIF if their daughter could play in the 4man and CIF had said no, and that parent then saw other high school girls in the 4man and contacted CIF. Now, CIF says a principal self-reported on a student.
That’s kind of a moot question, because the CIF rules and punishments are automatic. If you violate, you are to impose the punishment yourself and it is immediate. The moment you violate Rule 600, you are immediately under the sanction. That is why Santa Margarita High School is in trouble. They won league Monday night by beating Rosary, but they used an athlete who had played in the 4man. Now they forfeit that match, since CIF changed their position after 9/29/14 and now say they do regulate sand volleyball and that playing sand volleyball 4s violates rule 600.
So, the main issues remain:
1. Does CIF consistently say that sand volleyball is the same sport as indoor volleyball and CIF does regulate sand volleyball? If so, playing in the 4man violated Rule 600. 2. Since CIF clearly answered “NO” in September, 2014, to numerous parents who called specifically to ask that very question, should CIF withdraw the penalty for violating Rule 600.
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Post by gobears on Oct 30, 2014 15:31:00 GMT -5
As I am not a lawyer, I ask.... Cannot a suit be filed for ..........some legal term.....and get a judge to issue an injunction against the latest CIF ruling, which would allow the players to compete for the rest of this season....while the legal stuff winds its way thru the court system?
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Post by gigibear on Oct 30, 2014 16:12:14 GMT -5
I would be asking in what way does CIF govern sand/beach volleyball? Are there sand competitions between high schools yet? How is the conference/leagues divided? Not that MaxPrep is the defining know all for girls volleyball nationwide, or statewide, but I did a search for beach and sand volleyball and nothing came up. What bylaw in CIF governs sand/beach volleyball?
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Post by bayarea on Oct 30, 2014 16:40:18 GMT -5
The beach volleyball high school competition in southern Cal is not run through CIF, but through Interscholastic Beach Volleyball League, IBVL, aligned with AAU. www.ibvl.org
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Post by Cubicle No More ... on Oct 30, 2014 16:41:09 GMT -5
As I am not a lawyer, I ask.... Cannot a suit be filed for ........ ..some legal term.....and get a judge to issue an injunction against the latest CIF ruling, which would allow the players to compete for the rest of this season....while the legal stuff winds its way thru the court system? negligent misrepresentation coupled with a request for an injunction allowing the students to play (although, if the games where players have been suspended have already been played, then it would be moot at this point.)
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Post by chancelucky on Oct 30, 2014 20:26:07 GMT -5
I don't want to spend the time to research it, but it's a pretty difficult question. A lot of it is whether CIF determinations are "state" action and thus subject to the 14th amendment right to due process. I think the Tarkanian case held that the NCAA was not "state action" even though UNLV was a state school. In the CIF's case, most but not all the members are public schools and the schools pay membership dues (I think to CIF). In theory, CIF is a voluntary organization with thousands of public school high school members who pay publicly obtained money for their dues. It's really not voluntary in that you won't be able to get matches/games if you're not a member.
I think the official position with both NCAA and CIF is that they grant due process because they're willing to do so not because CIF considers itself having the color of being a state actor. I don't know if there was a hearing on this or if there will be one with CIF. I vaguely remember that CIF hearings tend to be more "evidentiary" than "interperative" if that makes sense. Basically, you can show that you didn't play beach volleyball that day, but you the hearing is not necessarily about whether beach volleyball is the same sport as volleyball.
The next question is whether playing high school sports is a "taking" of life, liberty, or property. I know we'd like to think that, because most of us see volleyball as 'life' but I'm not sure a court has ever found playing a high school sport to be a 14th amendment right.
If CIF is indeed a private voluntary organization (it's not size or whether the members are public entities), then they have the right to "police" their members as they see fit so long as they don't do it for a legally impermissible reason such as race, avoiding prosecution, religion, or the person fired or disciplined failing to have sex with the boss/owner. Even then, the person has a right to damages rather than the right to the job itself, at least not usually. Other than that, it's free as a private organization to do whatever stupid, inconsistent, non-criminal things it wants to do and the courts basically only have jurisdiction in bankruptcy (obviously there are some exceptions for certain things).
As I said, I don't know whether some court has found that CIF determinations are state action. There may well be a case. I just know that Tarkanian lost his case against the NCAA, though that doesn't mean that some aspects of NCAA actions might not be.
If it became a civil case, I'd certainly argue estoppel even though judges aren't fond of estoppel as an argument. There are probably a bunch of other bases for a suit as well, but the big "ifs" are whether the CIF is state action and if so if it's a "taking". IF it's not, the case gets much much harder.
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Post by geddyleeridesagain on Oct 30, 2014 21:29:59 GMT -5
Whoever invented the saying "Fun in the Sun" is a moron. If you ask me, I think it's torture to stay under the sun for more than 5 minutes. Ah, that explains you living under a bridge.
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Post by ncaavballguru on Oct 30, 2014 23:29:32 GMT -5
cifwatchdog.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/club-soccer-programs-gets-kicked-in-the-rear-by-cif/The link above is dated and posted by an anti-CIF Watchdog group. It is interesting that the 600 ruling was used to press athletes into choosing between club or high school soccer. Does anyone know the deeper background on this? That the CIF has ruled against 26 girls who played on the beach in Halloween costumes in a co-ed fundraising "tournament" seems to be quite a stretch of the spirit and intent of this 600 rule. Perhaps, the growth of beach volleyball is threatening to the CIF. Perhaps the CIF is concerned that players will choose sand tournaments over high school volleyball. Perhaps they should. Way too complicated. What probably happened is some other parents familiar with the 26 kids who played in the Halloween shindig (aka my darling daughter's team keeps getting their butts kicked by the teams that these 26 girls are on) dropped a dime to someone way up in the CIF-SS chain (i.e. with more suit and tie power than the peeps that the parents of the 26 kids and the other people who inquired in advance and got their answers from). We've got to stop all this white-suburban-upper-middle-class-athletes-families-drinking-hatorade on white-suburban-upper-middle-class-athletes-families-drinking-hatorade violence.
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Post by pogoball on Oct 31, 2014 22:44:18 GMT -5
I don't want to spend the time to research it, but it's a pretty difficult question. A lot of it is whether CIF determinations are "state" action and thus subject to the 14th amendment right to due process. I think the Tarkanian case held that the NCAA was not "state action" even though UNLV was a state school. In the CIF's case, most but not all the members are public schools and the schools pay membership dues (I think to CIF). In theory, CIF is a voluntary organization with thousands of public school high school members who pay publicly obtained money for their dues. It's really not voluntary in that you won't be able to get matches/games if you're not a member. I think the official position with both NCAA and CIF is that they grant due process because they're willing to do so not because CIF considers itself having the color of being a state actor. I don't know if there was a hearing on this or if there will be one with CIF. I vaguely remember that CIF hearings tend to be more "evidentiary" than "interperative" if that makes sense. Basically, you can show that you didn't play beach volleyball that day, but you the hearing is not necessarily about whether beach volleyball is the same sport as volleyball. The next question is whether playing high school sports is a "taking" of life, liberty, or property. I know we'd like to think that, because most of us see volleyball as 'life' but I'm not sure a court has ever found playing a high school sport to be a 14th amendment right. If CIF is indeed a private voluntary organization (it's not size or whether the members are public entities), then they have the right to "police" their members as they see fit so long as they don't do it for a legally impermissible reason such as race, avoiding prosecution, religion, or the person fired or disciplined failing to have sex with the boss/owner. Even then, the person has a right to damages rather than the right to the job itself, at least not usually. Other than that, it's free as a private organization to do whatever stupid, inconsistent, non-criminal things it wants to do and the courts basically only have jurisdiction in bankruptcy (obviously there are some exceptions for certain things). As I said, I don't know whether some court has found that CIF determinations are state action. There may well be a case. I just know that Tarkanian lost his case against the NCAA, though that doesn't mean that some aspects of NCAA actions might not be. If it became a civil case, I'd certainly argue estoppel even though judges aren't fond of estoppel as an argument. There are probably a bunch of other bases for a suit as well, but the big "ifs" are whether the CIF is state action and if so if it's a "taking". IF it's not, the case gets much much harder. The courts have consistently ruled that such organizations as the CIF act as agents of the state and as such are governed by federal laws. Several states have gone through the process of moving volleyball seasons from winter to fall under Title IX and they are set up with agencies as you describe the CIF. The sued for season change through the courts and in pretty much every instance, the organizations first filed that they were not subject to Title IX for the same reasons you state above and in every instance, the motion was shot down. Of course, I am not a lawyer (IANAL) and there may be technicalities here that I am unaware of.
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Post by chancelucky on Nov 1, 2014 11:23:26 GMT -5
Do you happen to know when that was resolved in the 9th Circuit and what the case was? I don't have access to westlaw at the moment. The Michigan case would be from a different circuit and if I remember it wasn't decided on the basis of the 14th amendment. There was some technical issue about that in 2005. Beyond that, all I know is that the US Supreme Court decided not to hear the matter and let a lower court ruling against MHSAA stand, which suggests there was some way to get MHSAA to court. There are law firms in Southern California who handle CIF matters and they'll know for sure. I do know that with the NCAA, the courts have been very reluctant to see it as a state actor. Tarkanian lost ultimately and Smith lost on her right to sue the NCAA in the U.S. Supreme Court. If State Athletic Associations are "state actors", it's interesting that intercollegiate athletic associations are not (at least for some purposes). They're different, but what's the difference?
I know some Catholic schools sued CIF Southern Section for messing with their league affiliations by claiming Religious Discrimination not that long ago. The pleadings in that case would probably have the answer.
With the beach volleyball rule 600 matter, has there been a CIF hearing? I imagine John would know. I think there are also some slight differences between "equal protection" claims and takings. This would likely be a taking while the MHSAA would be an equal protection matter. Because this particular eligibility issue is more of a "taking", if there's been a hearing and it meets the requirements of due process, then it doesn't matter that CIF is a state actor.A court would, however, be able to rule on the aduequacy of the underlying hearing.
I guess that's why they pay actual lawyers for these things.
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Post by volleyguy on Nov 1, 2014 11:33:40 GMT -5
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Post by chancelucky on Nov 1, 2014 12:00:22 GMT -5
Thanks volleyguy! The original question about how a rule 600 matter might get to court really isn't a simple matter.
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Post by bigfan on Nov 1, 2014 12:22:28 GMT -5
We've got to stop all this white-suburban-upper-middle-class-athletes-families-drinking-hatorade on white-suburban-upper-middle-class-athletes-families-drinking-hatorade violence. It will never stop..................
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Post by iandyer on Dec 19, 2018 11:46:40 GMT -5
4 years later, we now have in writing from CIF-SS:
"sand volleyball and indoor are two different sports."
As stated above, that's what CIF-SS said on the phone to me before the event, when I personally called to confirm that the indoor volleyball athletes could participate in the beach 4-person tourney during the indoor season. I confirmed it by email to our coaches and staff. Then after the tourney, CIF-SS ruled that participation was a violation, suspended 26 athletes, and flat out lied about the fact that they'd clearly stated that participation was ok because beach volleyball and indoor volleyball were two different sports.
Now, finally, we have CIF-SS stating in writing that they are two different sports. DM me if you need a copy of the email from CIF-SS.
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