Jury Awards Female Kicker $2 Million

A female kicker who tried out for the Duke University football team in the mid-1990s was awarded $2 million in punitive damages Thursday by a jury in Greensboro, N.C., which ruled that the school cut her from the team solely because of her gender, a federal violation.

Heather Sue Mercer’s contention that she was discriminated against was upheld by a jury after only two hours of deliberation.

The jurors, who during deliberations asked to see videotapes of Mercer and other kickers practicing, ruled that Duke must pay a $1 compensatory penalty and the larger amount as punishment.

“I feel great,” said Mercer, who is now 24. “I consider it a complete victory. Any monetary award is completely icing on the cake.

“I wanted to be told what they did was wrong, and it was.”

The university claimed that Mercer, who won the Blue Devils’ 1995 spring intrasquad game with a last-minute field goal, wasn’t talented enough to play for a Division I football team. The jurors ruled that sex was the motivating factor in the way she was treated and that Duke officials, informed of her complaints, failed to act.

Duke lawyer John Simpson said no decision has been made on whether to appeal.

“We’re disappointed by it,” he said. “Like they say in football, I left everything on the field.”

But Stuart Biegel, a UCLA law professor, predicted that the case will continue.

“This is not the end,” he said. “This is likely to be appealed, so the controversy has certainly not ended with this jury decision.

“But there’s no question it’s significant.”

How significant, the professor is not sure.

“All things considered, it’s unclear to what extent this [ruling] will have an impact on a day-to-day basis,” Biegel said. “But if you look at the larger picture in the push for gender equity under Title IX, it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction toward more gender equity.”

Cathy Young, a Middletown, N.J., journalist who has written extensively on gender issues, said the decision could turn out to be a double-edged sword for women.

“Obviously, I think it’s going to provide a stronger push for admitting more women to men’s teams,” said Young, author of the 1999 book, “Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality.”

“But I think one of the consequences is going to be that, in areas where there are women’s teams without corresponding men’s teams, we may very well see more men demanding to play on women’s teams, which I think is going to throw some of these programs into disarray.”

Two months ago in Kalamazoo, Mich., at the Little League Softball World Series for girls, a team from Eloy, Ariz., made up of seven teenage girls and five teenage boys, won the senior division title after the Philippines’ team, composed traditionally of all girls, refused to play in the championship game.

It was the third forfeiture during the tournament due to boys being allowed to participate. A Florida team took third after it, too, refused to play the Arizonans.

A Belgium team refused to play a Canadian club with one boy on its roster.

“Do we really want gender integration in sports?” Young asked. “Because if we do proceed down that road, there really are not that many female athletes who can compete with males in an integrated environment.

“It seems to me that simply because of the physical differences between men and women, the best opportunities for women can be provided by gender-segregated sports.”

Mercer, who was an all-state kicker for a state championship team at Yorktown High in Westchester County, N.Y., said in her suit that she suffered from depression, the denial of educational benefits and “the deprivation of opportunities to participate in the future in amateur or professional athletics.”

She will use the jury award to finance a scholarship for female kickers, lawyer Burton Craige said. Her own football career is over, Craige said, but she will continue with fencing.

Mercer, who graduated from Duke in 1998 and now works for Charles Schwab & Co. in New York, testified Wednesday that she was able to kick 48-yard field goals. Six other kickers on the Duke team at the time, however, testified that she lacked the necessary skills to kick on the major college level.

Though Coach Fred Goldsmith let her kick in spring practice, declared her a member of the team and put her picture in the media guide, Mercer never suited up for the Blue Devils.

“Fred Goldsmith chose not to see Heather Sue Mercer as a football player,” Melinda Lawrence, an attorney for Mercer, said Thursday during closing arguments.

“He chose not to see her skills. He chose only to see her as a woman.”

To award compensatory damages, jurors had to find that Mercer suffered actual financial losses because of Duke’s actions.

For punitive damages, they had to find Duke acted with malice and reckless indifference.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.