Note: This article is an excerpt from our spring 1997 newsletter. At the time, Legal Voice was called the Northwest Women’s Law Center.
Since the first all-girls hockey league began in Anchorage, Alaska in 1990, the city of Anchorage has discriminated against the girls by denying them equal access to the public ice rinks. After years of unsuccessful negotiations with the city, the all-girls Firebirds Hockey Association contacted the Northwest Women’s Law Center for help.
The Law Center took the case, and on May 22, following a week-long trial, attorneys working on behalf of the Law Center obtained a court order requiring the city of Anchorage to provide equal access to public ice rinks for girls’ hockey teams. The court also ordered the city to take affirmative measures to remedy past discrimination by developing a plan to meet the growing demand for more girls’ hockey teams.
Attorneys Mauri Long and Kristen Pettersen, from the Alaska law firm Dillon & Findley, were the Law Center’s cooperating attorneys. They filed a complaint for injunctive relief in Superior Court alleging violations of state and municipal laws prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations.
At trial they presented evidence that the city of Anchorage had engaged in discriminatory treatment of the girls by providing them substantially less ice time per team than the boys. In some instances, the girls received as little as one half of the ice time allotted to boys’ teams.
The Law Center’s cooperating attorneys were also able to demonstrate that the city’s “no growth” policy, which limited the number of new competitive hockey teams, had a discriminatory impact on girls because at the time the policy was implemented existing boys’ teams outnumbered the girls’ 22 to 2. This blatant discrimination had both immediate and long-term negative consequences for the female athletes — they were being denied the ability to practice, grow and compete to their full potential and these limited opportunities for development threatened to jeopardize lucrative college athletic scholarships. Women’s hockey is one of the fastest-growing college sports, and college recruiters have visited with Firebirds players and coaches and encouraged their development.
The judge in this case recognized not only the discriminatory treatment and impact resulting from the city’s ice allocation practices but also the long-term consequences of denying these young women equal athletic opportunity.
The Law Center would like to thank Mauri Long and Kristen Pettersen for their hard work on this case and Gwynne Skinner for serving as the Law Center’s Legal Committee liaison. Congratulations to the Firebirds players, coaches, and parents for persevering in their fight for equity!
