Yahoo Autos New York girls track team members suspended after sports bra protest
Albany High School student-athletes were booted from practice for wearing sports bras instead of shirts, which led to immediate activism.
The girls’ track and field team at Albany High School in upstate New York received a suspension after they launched a petition calling out gender dress code bias.
Several members of the Falcons were asked to leave practice last week by Ashley Chapple, Albany’s athletic director, for wearing sports bras instead of shirts, according to The Albany Times Union, and they complied. But one sprinter responded by starting an online petition titled “Stop Gender Biased Dress Codes: Allow the Girls Track Team to wear Sports Bras.”
“Wednesday, she confronted us about wearing sports bras and saying we couldn’t [just] wear sports bras because we have male coaches,” said sophomore Jordan Johnson, who started the signature-gathering effort on Change.org the following day.
Johnson told The Times Union that Chapple advised them to cover up “because male coaches are around.” The athletes who were booted from practice opted to wear sports bras on a hot, sweaty day while their male counterparts were allowed to go shirtless, which the girls deemed as unfair and had not been the practice before.
“Support the Albany high girls track team as we protest the gender-biased dress code,” reads the Change.org petition launched before the teens left campus that includes a photo of them posing in their sports bras. “The athletic administration staff is attempting to exclude us from our sport as a result of the misinterpretation of the dress code. We’re being punished for practicing in sports bras in the presence of male coaches, while the boys team was asked nicely to put shirts back on and was not punished.”
When they returned Thursday to attend a lacrosse game, the athletes said Chapple and several school security guards told them they couldn’t remain. The next day, 13 girls on the 15-member track team were suspended — they contend, after their petition was launched.
