We read one of the more entertaining cases of my law school career this week, Pederson v. Louisiana State University, 213 F.3d 858 (5th Cir. 2000). Now, I went to LSU and I'm what you could call a pretty big fan. OK, I'm unreasonably fanatical. So reading about my alma mater's Title IX violations when I was in school was pretty fun. Because if you're gonna violate a law, you might as well go all out.
You can tell things are going poorly when the opinion uses phrases like "Appellees argue brazenly..." they did not intentionally discriminate against women but discrimination resulted from "arrogant ignorance, confusion regarding the practical requirements of the law, and a remarkably outdated view of women and athletics which created the by-product of resistance to change."
Not only did LSU fail to even come remotely near equal participation, they offered little opportunities to women, and made no effort to even pretend they were trying to comply with Title IX. But things really got bad when the Athletic Director opened up his mouth.
He referred to the woman suing him and his school for discrimination as "honey," "sweetie," and "cutie." He even offered to help her by saying, "I'd love to help a cute little girl like you" but that's only because women's soccer deserved varsity status because, and I quote, "they would look cute running around in their soccer shorts."
Not suprisingly, the cute little girl won her suit. And the AD got canned. And LSU would add women's soccer and softball. And I'd like to point out that LSU women's softball is now frickin' awesome.
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