Legal Team Asks Court To Reinstate Oregon H.S. Track Coach Fired For Proposing Open Division For Trans Runners
The Liberty Justice Center filed a motion on Monday urging an Oregon court to reinstate a high school track and field coach who was fired for speaking out on rules for transgender athletes competing in girls' sports.
John Parks was terminated as the track and field coach at Lake Oswego High School earlier this year after he wrote letters to Executive Director of the Oregon Student Activities Association (OSAA), Peter Weber, and to state Sen. Rob Wagner, urging them to create an "open" division for transgender athletes to compete.
That's after Aayden (a.k.a. Ada) Gallagher — a trans-identifying male athlete — took first place in the women's 200-meter and second place in the women's 400-meter at the OSAA 6A State Championships. Gallagher would have finished last in both events in the men's division.
Upon taking the podium, Gallagher was booed by the crowd, who saw the athlete's participation as unfair to the female competitors.
But in an exclusive interview with OutKick on Wednesday, Parks explained that he actually penned the letter before the state meet after his own athletes expressed frustration over the rules allowing males to compete in women's events.
"The issue was sparked prior to the state meet, and my female athletes and their parents were very frustrated because they felt like they couldn't say anything," Parks said. "They felt like they were being silenced and couldn't speak up. They didn't want to be made to look bad."
Parks said he had the blessing of both Lake Oswego's athletic director and principal to write the letter, which he sent on his own time from his personal email. It wasn't until Marshall Haskins, the athletic director for Portland Public Schools, filed a complaint accusing Parks of harassing transgender athletes that the school district let him go.
John Parks was fired from his job as a high school track coach after writing a letter proposing a separate division for transgender athletes.
(Getty Images)
Parks has vehemently denied the accusations that he bullied trans athletes in any way, and he says no evidence has been presented that supports those claims. Even the district's own investigation, he said, "found it to be lacking in merit."
"I think they overreacted," Parks said. "In fact, I know from speaking to a higher-up person in the athletic chain at the school that they overreacted to the pressure after the complaint. They simply thought they had to do something so that they would look good in the media — that they would look politically correct. It was pressure from above.
"And that's what's unfortunate is that they took that path, rather than trying to look at the totality of the situation, the facts of what had actually happened."
John Parks Involved In Legal Battle With Oregon School District
In late July, the Liberty Justice Center filed a First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of Parks, arguing that the Lake Oswego School District and School Board fired him in retaliation for writing the letter and thereby violated his constitutional rights to free speech and due process.
"Coach Parks was retaliated against, falsely accused of discriminatory behavior, denied an appeal, and fired — just for exercising his constitutional right to free speech as a private citizen," said Buck Dougherty, Senior Counsel at the LJC.
On Monday, Parks' legal team amended its complaint to include Haskins, who made the harassment allegations against him. LJC also filed a motion on Monday for a preliminary injunction to reinstate Parks both as a track and field coach and a teacher at Lake Oswego and to request an expedited hearing.
Alongside the motion, Parks' lawyers included multiple declarations signed by parents in support of Parks.
"All of their children participated as members of the track team this past spring, under Coach Parks's tutelage, and they all testified in writing in their declarations that he showed tremendous leadership and was fair, and they want him back," Dougherty said. "They did not see any disruption to the track program as a result of Coach Parks writing his email to the OSAA."
Parks said he is grateful for the support he's received from parents and other coaches. He also runs a track and field club, and he said membership has tripled since these events unfolded over the summer.
John Parks Urges OSAA To Change Policy On Transgender Athletes
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, males have a biological advantage over females when it comes to sports — even if a fully grown man undergoes hormone therapy. That's why World Athletics (the international governing body for track and field) banned athletes who have undergone male puberty from participating in women's events.
However, the Oregon Department of Education currently allows students to participate on sports teams and to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that reflect their preferred gender identity. Male student-athletes are not required to undergo any sort of hormone treatment in order to compete on girls' and women's teams.
"It causes these naturally-born girls to say, ‘Why am I training so hard when this is happening?’" Parks said. "What are the girls supposed to do? We're encouraging them to take steroids? Or to take illegal drugs to compete? Males have higher testosterone, and we ban testosterone at any level to compete. But these (male) athletes who have gone through puberty will have much higher testosterone than female athletes will."
Demonstrators listen to the speaking program during an "Our Bodies, Our Sports" rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Lake Oswego is a suburb of Portland, one of the most left-leaning cities in the country. But for Parks, this isn't an issue that should be politicized. Because it just comes down to basic biology.
"Many of my liberal friends are very adamantly, strongly opposed to the current policy the OSAA is implementing," Parks said. "So this, to me, is not political …(Liberals) typically try to be more protective of trans rights, but there's a line there where you say not when it comes to a physical advantage."
RELATED: High School Track Coach Fired For Defending Women's Sports Shares His Story With Riley Gaines
Parks further reiterated that he is in no way attempting to exclude transgender athletes from sports. Rather, he believes the OSAA should establish an open category so that their accomplishments can be celebrated while still protecting fairness and safety for female athletes.
"We need to try to find a healthy balance," Parks said. "If we have a third division, then more transgender athletes are going to feel more welcome to come out. Because I know that right now there are some that say, 'We don't want to compete against natural-born females because we know we have an advantage, and we don't want that scorn.'
"But they still want the team bonding and the relationships, the friendships that you get out of sports. Which is why we want to protect those opportunities for the transgender community, while putting them in a category where they can be celebrated instead of being booed."