STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2584

                                   Honolulu, Hawaii
                                                     , 2000

                                   RE:  S.B. No. 2475
                                        S.D. 1




Honorable Norman Mizuguchi
President of the Senate
Twentieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2000
State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B.
No. 2475, S.D. 1, entitled: 

     "A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO GENDER EQUITY IN SPORTS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to prohibit sexual
discrimination in interscholastic, club, and intramural athletics
in public schools, in grades nine through twelve.

     Specifically, this bill:

     (1)  Establishes an Advisory Commission on Gender Equity in
          Sports and requires the advisory commission to
          determine if any school does not exhibit substantial
          progress toward compliance with state and federal laws
          prohibiting sexual discrimination in athletics;

     (2)  Requiring the Superintendent to define equity in
          athletics for all public high schools, to recommend
          rules for appropriate enforcement mechanisms to ensure
          equity, and to develop a strategic plan to implement
          these recommendations over two years;

     (3)  Specifies factors that the Superintendent and the
          advisory committee must consider when assessing
          equality of opportunity for members of each sex,

 
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          including unequal aggregate expenditures for members of
          each sex or unequal expenditures for male and female
          teams;

     (4)  Requires the Superintendent to:

          (A)  Prepare a compliance report, including a
               compliance plan with timelines for every public
               high school, an analysis and assessment of current
               activities with respect to compliance, and
               itemized expenditures for athletics; and

          (B)  Submit the compliance report to the Legislature
               and the advisory commission no later than
               September 1 of each year, beginning in 2001; and

     (5)  Gives an aggrieved person a right of action to seek
          such equitable relief as a court may determine, and
          allows the court to award reasonable attorney's fees
          and court costs to the prevailing party.

     In addition, this bill specifies that members of an excluded
sex must be allowed to try out for a team offered when a public
high school operates or sponsors a team in a particular sport for
members of one sex, but does not operate or sponsor such a team
for members of the other sex, and athletic opportunities for the
excluded sex have previously been limited.

     Because of the unknown cost of ensuring gender equity in
sports, the need to fund court-ordered mental health services for
children and adolescents, and the desire to bring high schools
into compliance with state and federal laws concerning sexual
discrimination in athletics as soon as practicable, your
Committee requests that the Superintendent submit a report to the
Legislature by December 1, 2000, on the estimated cost of fully
implementing this bill.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your
Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your
Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No.
2475, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.


 
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                                 Respectfully submitted on behalf
                                 of the members of the Committee
                                 on Ways and Means,



                                 ________________________________
                                 CAROL FUKUNAGA, Co-Chair



                                 ________________________________
                                 ANDREW LEVIN, Co-Chair

 
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