City to Build 4 Fields for Girls’ Softball

Los Angeles officials on Tuesday settled a lawsuit that charged girls are routinely assigned second-rate sports fields while boys enjoy access to prime playing turf, agreeing to a deal called a milestone for gender equity in athletics.

The deal ends a dispute that has already triggered other major reforms in the way the city treats girls’ sports programs.

“This says, ‘Girls matter,’ ” said Paula Pearlman of the California Women’s Law Center, one of the lawyers for the league.

“Giving girls a permanent field changes how we look at girls in our society. It says they deserve this. It says they’re important. It says we value them.”

Led by 10 girls and their parents, the West Valley Girls Softball League sued the city last year after being forced to play on fields riddled with holes and bald patches, shuffling from one park to another without a permanent field of its own.

Last fall, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California expanded the suit to include all girls in the city. By settling the lawsuit, the city avoided a costly trial without admitting fault.

The city agreed to pay $100,000 to construct four softball fields in Woodland Hills, and pay $150,000 for attorney fees. The 30-year-old private league has about 500 players ages 5 to 18.

Increase in Females’ Participation Sought

In response to the lawsuit, the Department of Recreation and Parks last February launched a “Raise the Bar” initiative that offers sports clinics for girls, recruits mothers to serve as coaches and female athletes to volunteer as mentors.

The program aims to increase female participation across the city by 10% the first year and 25% the second year.

A recent study conducted by the Department of Recreation and Parks showed that 46,446 male players and 11,161 female players participated in city-run recreation programs in 1998.

Gary Baer, the department’s supervisor of municipal sports, said the city is now surveying about 135 recreation centers to determine how many girls have since joined sports programs.

“My gut feeling is that we’re going to blow by this year’s 10% benchmark,” Baer said.

Spurred in part by the recent U.S. soccer victory in the Women’s World Cup tournament, many girls have been signing up to play at Valley parks. Recreation directors at Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park, Studio City Recreation Center and Balboa Sports Center in Encino have all said that more girls are joining their athletic programs since Raise the Bar started. In one case, Balboa went from having no girls basketball teams to fielding 22.

“I’m extremely happy,” said David Berman, president of the West Valley Girls Softball League. “Personally, it still angers me that we had to go to such great lengths to just find a place for these kids to play permanently. But hopefully it opens the door for more opportunities for girls.”

The settlement Tuesday provides the league a five-year lease, with a 10-year renewal option, at Hughes Middle School in Woodland Hills. The deal includes parking spaces and the right to build a concession stand. The league will also be given space on a portion of the Adam Bischoff Soccer Fields in West Hills that has previously been used for T-ball.

The city will also provide $50,000 worth of work to construct fences and renovate restrooms at the Hughes site.

The lawsuit’s original claim--that the girls of the West Valley were denied equal access to softball fields--remained a sticking point in the negotiations. The league first turned down several offers of fields, including those at Hughes, because the city failed to offer a long-term lease.

Change in Permit Process Not Addressed

At the moment, the softball diamonds at Hughes Middle School look no better than the shabby fields the girls are fleeing.

“They need a lot of TLC,” said Kathy Wyatt, an office assistant at the school, which has been closed to students since 1983. “The grass is all dead.”

The building now houses administrative offices for the Los Angeles Unified School District, but the school may soon reopen to children. Dale Braun, LAUSD’s director of school management services, said the students would share the softball fields with the girls’ league, with the league using the space after school and on weekends.

The settlement did not address one of the major changes initially sought by attorneys for the girls, a controversial change in the annual permit process for city ball fields. Many youth baseball leagues, made up mostly of boys, opposed any alteration to a system that reserved the same fields for their squads year after year.

For half a century, parents and volunteers have invested time and money to operate sites leased to them by the city, creating lush ball fields complete with snack bars, bleachers and batting cages.

The lawsuit alleged that girls were not given the same chance to develop a home field.

Settlement Called a ‘National Model’

Mark Rosenbaum, legal director for the ACLU, said the permit issue was put on the back burner because the Raise the Bar program will give girls citywide access to the kinds of athletic opportunities their brothers have long savored.

The settlement is “a national model for gender equity in municipal sports,” Rosenbaum said. “Babe Ruth couldn’t have hit a home run any farther than this.”