LETTER: Phoenixville School District owes an apology to its female athletes

Thank you to Evan Brandt for writing an excellent lead story in Sunday’s Mercury regarding Title IX in the Phoenixville Area School District. I’m not a huge sports fan, but I am a Phoenixville native and taxpayer, and I know an injustice when I see one.

The pictures of the boys’ vs. girls’ athletic facilities were damning enough. But to read that the girls’ cross country team members got T-shirts for winning a conference title while the male baseball players got rings and jackets — the evidence couldn’t be more obvious. (And do taxpayers really need to pay for these?)

It’s embarrassing to live in a school district that supports such blatant inequities, even though I suspect the practice is common nationwide. The message our community is sending girls is stark: They’re just not as important as boys are.

The Phoenixville Area School District owes a debt of thanks to the Padilla family for pursuing this case, not for financial gain or even for the sake of their daughter, who has graduated.

The district also owes an apology to its female athletes (and non-athletes, for that matter), and a promise to right this wrong for all the girls who follow them.

Lee Berger,Phoenixville High School, Class of ’71