Ten-year-old Kymora Johnson has been playing on an all-boys basketball team since she was five. She loves to play and loves her team — and they’re pretty good, too.
The Charlottesville Cavaliers were preparing to move on to the finals of last weekend’s National Travel Basketball Association tournament when the team was hit with some devastating news: The Cavaliers would not be able to continue in the tournament. They had been disqualified, along with one other team, for having a girl on their roster.
“I can’t believe this is 2015, and my daughter isn’t allowed to play with boys. What message does this send to other girls? What message does it send to boys?” Johnson’s mother, Jessica Thomas-Johnson, told the Washington Post.
NTBA credited the disqualification to a new policy which banned girls from competing in the tournament after receiving “complaints from parents.” According to Cavaliers coach Joe Mallory, he and the team were not informed of this change in policy during their registration process, nor was Johnson told during her individual registration and in-person interview process in which she had to state her name and birth date and present her birth certificate.
It wasn’t until the team had played five games that the tournament organizers informed the team that they would be disqualified, even if Johnson did not represent the team or play in the remaining games.
We stand united-in PINK!💗 The game (w/2 other teams) has begun–it's irreversible. #EqualityForKymora #JusticeForCavs pic.twitter.com/0eKnup5Fex
— Jessica Thomas-Johns (@JDTJ) August 2, 2015
The NTBA seemed to find no issue with the sudden nature of this policy change, despite allowing co-ed teams to compete without issue in the past — and that includes the Cavaliers, which Johnson has been a part of for five years. “There were two teams that showed up with at least one girl on the roster,” NTBA president John Whitely told the Charlottesville Daily Progress. “We explained to both teams that the girls are not allowed to play. Unfortunately, the coaches chose to play those girls and therefore by our rules we had to dismiss them from the tournament.”
In addition to referring to the two teams’ decision to allow the girls to play as “unfortunate,” Whiteley also said, “we have no problem with the girls sitting on the bench. We don’t care who sits on the bench with the teams, that goes for anybody … to sit on the bench.”
According to her mother, the family hopes that Johnson will be allowed to continue playing on the team, but is unsure of what the Cavaliers will decide in regard to future participation in the tournament.
In the midst of a big summer for women in basketball, in which the San Antonio Spurs were lead to a Summer League title by assistant coach and WNBA legend Becky Hammon, and Nancy Lieberman joined the Sacramento Kings as the second female assistant coach in NBA history, Johnson’s story is a sobering reminder of the progress yet to be made for women and girls seeking equality in sports.
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys by the age of 14. WSF largely attributes this to the fact that girls are given significantly fewer (1.3 million fewer, to be exact) opportunities to participate in sports by their high school years when compared to their male classmates. Young females are also at a heightened risk for bullying, and often receive less funding for sports programs and facilities than their male peers.
“If you have a daughter, or even a woman in your life, it is worth supporting because of the bigger picture, because of the opportunities it will lead to down the road for little girls,” said Hammon with regards to sports inclusion during her New York Liberty Ring of Honor induction ceremony last Sunday. “We’re not asking the male to get up and leave his seat. We’re just saying scoot over a little bit. Make a little room at the table for the ladies.”
Katelyn Harrop is an intern with ThinkProgress