(The Center Square) – The people who run high school sports in Wisconsin are clear: They are not a public school, they don’t take any public money, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court just ruled they’re not a public entity.
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, better known as the WIAA, is fighting a plan that would apply public records and public open meetings law to their private organization.
“This legislation would impose a function now reserved for public offices on our organization that again, receives no tax dollars or public support,” WIAA executive director Stephanie Hauser told lawmakers.
She told lawmakers that AB 51 would unfairly target her association.
“Like dozens of similarly school-based organizations we are not subject to open records laws,” Hauser explained. “We are extraordinarily transparent. We are very clear processes for our decisions in accordance with the needs of our members.”
But Rep. Cindi Duchow, R-Town of Delafield, said the WIAA wields immense power over thousands of high school athletes in public schools across the state.
“Because they are classified as a private entity, the WIAA is not subject to open meetings and open record laws, even though the member schools are,” Duchow explained. “The oversight grants the WIAA the ability to act as a judge, jury, and executioner on rules they independently establish. No one knows how their meetings are conducted, or why certain decisions are made. And schools have no other choice because there is no other alternative other than to join this association.”
Duchow said all she is asking for is transparency.
The move comes after a couple of headline grabbing cases including one where the WIAA ruled a track star ineligible because his family was on a religious mission trip in Africa. That decision was eventually reversed.
But the WIAA also pointed to a headline grabbing case over the state wrestling title that went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where the court sided with them.
“To the point of the WIAA not being a government entity. This fact is something that Wisconsin Supreme Court has already expressed a high level of doubt on,” Houser explained. “In a recent ruling the court had the opportunity to label WIAA as a government or a quasi government entity, and none of the seven justices did so.”
