## Facts

- Gregory B. Clark and other male Arizona high school students sought to play interscholastic volleyball.
- Plaintiffs had high-level volleyball experience, including participation on national championship teams sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Union.
- Many Arizona high schools sponsored interscholastic volleyball teams only for girls.
- The Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) adopted a policy barring boys from participating on girls’ interscholastic volleyball teams.
- Under the same policy, girls could participate on boys’ teams in non-contact sports as a measure to address girls’ historical lack of athletic opportunities.
- The AIA justified excluding boys from girls’ teams on the grounds that boys historically had more athletic opportunities and that allowing boys on girls’ teams would displace girls and further reduce their participation opportunities.
- The parties stipulated to material facts, including evidence that high school boys, on average, were taller, stronger, and jumped higher than high school girls, making boys more likely to secure roster spots in volleyball.

## Issues

1. Whether a rule barring boys from girls’ interscholastic volleyball teams, while permitting girls to participate on boys’ teams in non-contact sports, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed judgment for the AIA.
- The court applied intermediate scrutiny to the sex-based classification.
- The court held the AIA’s objectives—remedying past discrimination against girls in athletics and preventing displacement of female athletes—were important governmental objectives.
- The court concluded excluding boys from girls’ volleyball was substantially related to those objectives, given stipulated physical differences and the limited number of participation slots available to girls.
- The court rejected the argument that the policy’s asymmetry (girls may play on boys’ teams, boys may not play on girls’ teams) was unconstitutional because it functioned as a remedial measure to expand, not reduce, girls’ opportunities.
- The court held that the rule remained constitutional even if it effectively limited boys’ access to interscholastic volleyball at schools without boys’ volleyball teams, in light of the broader distribution of athletic opportunities favoring boys.

## Legal Principles

- Sex-based classifications under the Equal Protection Clause are evaluated under intermediate scrutiny.
- Under intermediate scrutiny, the government must show (1) important governmental objectives and (2) a substantial relationship between the classification and those objectives.
- In interscholastic athletics, excluding boys from girls’ teams may satisfy intermediate scrutiny when aimed at remedying girls’ historical underrepresentation and preventing displacement of girls from limited team opportunities.
- A sex-based athletic participation rule is more likely to be upheld when supported by record evidence of average physical differences relevant to competitive selection and participation rates, rather than generalized stereotypes.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the AIA’s prohibition on boys playing girls’ interscholastic volleyball was constitutional because it served important objectives of remedying prior inequality in girls’ athletic opportunities and preventing displacement of female athletes, and the exclusion was substantially related to achieving those objectives.


Clark v. Ariz. Interscholastic Ass'n, 695 F.2d 1126 (9th Cir. 1982)