Girls Held to Higher Academic Standards, Expert Says : Education: She is testifying for an ex-Irvine high school cheerleader who was dropped after failing one course.

A “sex equity” expert testified Thursday that dropping a student from an Irvine high school cheerleading squad for failing a course is a “metaphor” for a much larger problem: unequal academic standards for boys and girls participating in extracurricular activities.

Phyllis Lerner, a Huntington Beach staff development specialist who has served as a consultant to the state Department of Education on sex equity issues, said that cheerleaders are being held to a higher standard because they are almost always female.

While cheerleaders are expected to play a certain role in society, Lerner asked: “Are they the prime representative of what women are?”

Lerner was called to testify on behalf of Melissa Fontes, who claims in a lawsuit against the Irvine Unified School District that she was illegally barred from the Woodbridge High School cheerleading squad in 1990 because she failed a chemistry course.

Superior Court Judge Robert Gardner, who presided over the two-day, non-jury trial, is expected to issue a ruling next week.

Now 19 and a student at Orange Coast College, Fontes and her mother, Patricia Passy, charged in the lawsuit that academic standards for female cheerleaders are unfairly higher than those for male athletes.

The Irvine Unified School District contends that the different standards are both reasonable and rational.

Athletes are required to maintain a 2.0 grade-point average and pass at least four courses the previous quarter. To try out for the cheerleading squad or to run for student government, students are required to maintain a 2.5 grade-point average over the past two semesters and not have failed a course the previous quarter.

Fontes was co-captain of the Woodbridge High cheerleading squad as a junior, but after she failed a chemistry course, she was told she could not rejoin the squad as a senior, despite an overall 2.9 average.

Mary Ellen Hadley, a member of the district’s Board of Trustees, testified that the higher standard was justified because of the “unique nature of cheerleading.”

Cheerleaders, Hadley said, are “ambassadors for the school district,” an all-year activity with considerable time demands.

Pamela A. Dempsey, the school district’s attorney, said that the higher standards were justified because being a cheerleader entails a “leadership role” and “high visibility” and requires the ability to control crowds at games.

However, Bonnie K. Lawley, Fontes’ attorney, told the judge that “this is not a case about cheerleading--it’s a case about equal participation.”

Outside the courtroom, Lerner, 42, herself a former varsity athlete as well as a cheerleader, admitted to some ambivalence in testifying in the case. However, she said that while the issue may seem trivial at first, it is not.

“It is difficult for me, after working with racism and sexism for 15 years, to finally see myself in a court dealing with cheerleaders,” Lerner said.

“The reason I felt strongly about the case is, the way we see cheerleaders in our society still is a metaphor for the way we see young women,” she said.