The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is getting involved in Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s lawsuit against a nonprofit governing body for high school sports and activities, accusing the organization of sex and race discrimination for denying a board position to a white man.
U.S. attorneys cite key civil rights cases, like Loving v. Virginia in 1967 striking down laws banning interracial marriage, in a motion to intervene filed Thursday that argues the the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s policy constitutes “systematic unconstitutional race and sex-based discrimination.”
The lawsuit focuses on a 2004 MSHSAA policy that reserves two at-large spots on its 10-member board of directors for “candidates representing the under-represented gender of the current board or an under-represented ethnicity.”
MSHSAA and its members created this policy in 2004 after noticing a “striking pattern” that the board, with one exception, had never had “a minority or female board member,” the organization’s attorney, Natalie Hoernschemeyer, wrote in a letter to the state auditor.
The rule quietly governed the board’s composition for over two decades until March 2025, when Cassville Superintendent Merlyn Johnson was denied the opportunity to run for an at-large spot.
Johnson reported the alleged discrimination to State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, who investigated the complaint through a series of letters to MSHSAA’s attorney before reporting the incident to the attorney general’s office in November.
Throughout this process, the organization has defended the policy. When state lawmakers debated a bill to create state oversight of MSHSAA, its executive director, Jennifer Rukstad, was firm with committee members who sought to label the rule as unfair.
“It has served our members and our organization very well,” she said, later adding, “It is our contention that it is not a discriminatory policy.”
But U.S. attorneys see the rule as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. And before being ousted on Thursday as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi labeled the case “of general public importance.”
“Racial and sexual quotas are offensive, demeaning — and most importantly, illegal,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release. “They are especially harmful when they exclude qualified candidates such as Dr. Johnson from public service.”
Policies like MSHSAA’s that attempt to give opportunities to underrepresented groups have come under fire in recent years with a federal crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Some of these battles have already made it through the courts, like the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action in 2023.
Whether or not this precedent applies to the case against MSHSAA will depend in large part on whether the organization serves a public function.
At its core, the organization is a private nonprofit, which would ordinarily not be subject to claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. But court filings show state and federal attorneys attempt to characterize MSHSAA as public, pointing out that the organization’s members are predominantly public schools and that MSHSAA’s employees are eligible for the state retirement system.
The organization has yet to respond to the complaint in court. A spokesperson for MSHSAA told The Independent in a statement that the association “respectfully disagrees with the allegations contained in the filings.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
