Cooper v. Oregon School Activities Ass'n

629 P.2d 386, 52 Or. App. 425, 15 A.L.R. 4th 869, 1981 Ore. App. LEXIS 2559
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMay 26, 1981
DocketA7911-05444-E, CA 16349; A7911-05445
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 629 P.2d 386 (Cooper v. Oregon School Activities Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cooper v. Oregon School Activities Ass'n, 629 P.2d 386, 52 Or. App. 425, 15 A.L.R. 4th 869, 1981 Ore. App. LEXIS 2559 (Or. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinions

[427]*427GILLETTE, P. J.

These are consolidated suits for declaratory and injunctive relief in which plaintiffs seek declarations that they are eligible to participate in interscholastic sports competition in their respective high schools and injunctions against enforcement of an Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) rule that bars them from participating in such competition for one year following their transfer from parochial to public high schools. Plaintiffs appeal from a trial court order dismissing their complaints and awarding judgment to defendants. We affirm.

We take the facts from plaintiffs’ complaints. Plaintiffs are high school students attending public schools in Portland. Plaintiff Theresa Cooper is a sophomore at Madison High School; plaintiff Brian Faherty is a sophomore at Grant High School. Defendant OSAA is a voluntary association of public and private schools in Oregon that was established primarily to regulate interscholastic athletic competition. Grant and Madison High Schools are members of OSAA, as are virtually all other public and private high schools in the state. Defendant Ryan is the executive director of OSAA.

Both plaintiffs spent their freshman year at parochial high schools. They would have preferred to attend public rather than parochial schools during their freshman year, but their parents chose to send them to parochial high schools in order for them to continue their religious education. Both plaintiffs participated in athletics during their freshman year at these high schools. At the end of their freshman year, however, they prevailed upon their parents to permit them to transfer to public high schools. Athletic considerations played no part in their transfer decisions, and neither student was encouraged to transfer or recruited for athletics by personnel at the public high schools to which they were transferring.

The OSAA rule in question provides, in pertinent part:

"Article 20, Eligibility Rules * * *
"20-6 TRANSFER
i*
[428]*428"20-6-2 A student who transfers from any high school to any member high school becomes ineligible until one calendar year after the student first attends the new school. For purposes of this rule, a student is deemed to have transferred from another high school if at any previous time the student registered and attended classes at, or participated in any way in athletics at, another high school.”

The rule was adopted to preserve harmony among member schools by preventing both actual recruitment of high school athletes and the appearance of recruitment. There are a number of exceptions to it,1 but none applies to plaintiffs.

Grant High School, on Brian Faherty’s behalf, filed a "hardship” request with OSAA seeking a waiver of the OSAA transfer ineligibility rule. The parochial school from which Faherty transferred had no objection to the request and later joined with Grant High School in making it. Defendant Ryan denied the requested waiver. An appeal filed with OSAA’s Board of Control was also denied. Theresa Cooper’s father met with Ryan concerning a similar request to waive the transfer ineligibility rule; Ryan advised him that a waiver request would be futile. As a consequence, plaintiffs filed the present actions.

Plaintiffs challenge Rule 20-6-2 on both statutory and constitutional grounds. They contend that the school districts, acting through OSAA, did not have the authority to adopt or enforce the transfer rule, because the rule improperly penalizes plaintiffs for exercising their statutory right to attend parochial instead of public schools and because the rule violates ORS 339.115, which requires school district boards to

"* * * admit free of charge to the schools of [their] district all persons between the ages of 6 and 21 residing therein.”

In addition, plaintiffs argue that the rule violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Oregon Constitution and deprives them of their rights to religious freedom, free association and equal protection guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

[429]*429 I. Statutory considerations

We first consider plaintiffs’ statutory arguments.2 We note at the outset that the contractual agreement between the school districts and OSAA confers authority on OSAA to operate as an agent for the member schools. Therefore, OSAA may enforce the rules which the member schools, acting through OSAA, adopt. By the same token, OSAA is subject to statutory and administrative rules which regulate school districts.

Plaintiffs’ right under ORS 339.030(2)3 to attend parochial instead of public schools is obviously not impinged upon by the transfer rule. Neither child is in any way being prohibited from attending such schools. Neither do we think the rule in question violates ORS 339.115,4 which simply requires schools to admit pupils free of charge. Plaintiffs rely on Neuhaus v. Federico, 12 Or App 314, 505 P2d 939, rev den (1973), for the proposition that, in the absence of specific statutory authority given to a board to restrict student participation, a student admitted under ORS 339.115, supra, is entitled to participate in activities at the school. We agree with plaintiffs that the school district’s authority is limited to "enacting rules [which have] a reasonable relation with the proper operation of the [430]*430schools.” Neuhaus v. Federico, supra, 12 Or App at 322. However, Neuhaus does not stand for the proposition that students are entitled to participate in all activities at the school.5 In fact, plaintiffs conceded on oral argument that a school can internally restrict the number of extracurricular activities in which a student may take part if the school can connect such action with promotion of educational goals. If a single school can do that, we fail to perceive why it cannot do so in conjunction with other schools, so long as the resulting rule.bears a reasonable relationship to the goal of fostering interscholastic athletic competition. We conclude that Rule 20-6-2, by preventing recruitment of athletes between high schools, serves such a purpose.

II. Right to free exercise of religion

The right to free exercise of religion is guaranteed by Art I, §§ 2 and 3 of the Oregon Constitution and by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.6 These provisions protect a parent’s right to send his or her child to parochial instead of public schools, ORS 339.030(2), Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 US 510, 45 S Ct 571, 69 L Ed 1070 (1925), as well as the child’s right to free exercise of religion. Wisconsin v.

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Cooper v. Oregon School Activities Ass'n
629 P.2d 386 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1981)
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Bluebook (online)
629 P.2d 386, 52 Or. App. 425, 15 A.L.R. 4th 869, 1981 Ore. App. LEXIS 2559, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cooper-v-oregon-school-activities-assn-orctapp-1981.