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Dighton-Rehoboth Girls’ Field Hockey Forfeits Upcoming Game Against Male Player

By Tom Joyce | September 11, 2024, 7:35 EDT

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2024/09/11/dighton-rehoboth-girls-field-hockey-forfeits-upcoming-game-against-male-player/

Photo by Raul Lieberwirth / Flickr

The Dighton-Rehoboth girls’ field hockey team is choosing to forfeit rather than play a team that has a boy on it.

Dighton-Rehoboth will forfeit its upcoming Tuesday, September 17 home game against Somerset Berkeley Regional High School.

The decision follows a new school district policy the regional school committee approved June 25, Dighton-Rehoboth superintendent Bill Runey said.

“Our Field Hockey coaches and captains made this decision, and we notified our opponent accordingly,” Runey said in a written statement. “The District supports this decision as there are times where we have to place a higher value on safety than on victory. We understand this forfeit will impact our chances for a league championship and possibly playoff eligibility, but we remain hopeful that other schools consider following suit to achieve safety and promote fair competition for female athletes.”

Sophomore Ryan Crook, a boy who also plays baseball, is one of Somerset Berkley’s key contributors, as NewBostonPost has previously reported. He helped the team to an unbeaten regular season last year (17-0-1). Crook’s mother, Jen, is the Somerset Berkley head coach; her other son, Lucas, who graduated in 2020, also played field hockey and was the school’s all-time leading scorer (142 goals and 122 assists). He also helped the team win two state championships (2018 and 2019). Lucas also scored the game-winning goal in overtime in the 2018 MIAA Division 1 state championship game; Somerset-Berkley beat Nashoba 2-1.

Dighton-Rehoboth also plans to forfeit its October 8 game against Somerset Berkley, according to the statement. Those forfeits will bring them to 0-3-1 on the season, while Somerset Berkley will improve to 4-0-0. In the two games it has played this season, Somerset Berkley has outscored its opponents 16-0.

Dighton-Rehoboth lets girls opt out of playing sports against boys and vice versa without any penalty, thanks to a policy approved 10-0 by its school committee on June 25, 2024, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

The policy came after a female Dighton-Rehoboth field hockey player suffered serious injuries last fall after being hit in the face by a ball shot by an opposing male player, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

Massachusetts is the lone state that allows boys to play high school field hockey; boys do so every year and make significant impacts for their respective teams.

The state lets boys play on girls’ teams because of a 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision called Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. The court ruled that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policy of the time that stated “No boy may play on a girls’ team” was unlawful, finding that it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.

The Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution says:

 

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

The state’s Equal Rights Amendment was somewhat new at the time of the court decision in 1979. The amendment passed via referendum in the November 1976 general election with 60.4 percent supporting and 39.6 percent opposing, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Every Massachusetts county voted in favor of the proposed amendment.

In June, a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association press spokesman told NewBostonPost that it won’t penalize Dighton-Rehoboth for its policy.

“The decision by the Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee was a local decision, and as such, the MIAA does not involve itself in local policy,” the association spokesman wrote via email. “The D-R membership and participation in the MIAA has always been valued, and we will continue to serve them and all our member schools and districts as a resource.”