Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a lawsuit against the Indiana High School Athletic Association in a bid to eliminate a race-based quota for the association’s board of directors, which reserves two of its 19 seats for minorities.
The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Superior Court Wednesday, alleges the IHSAA is engaging in racial discrimination in how it selects board leadership in violation of its nonprofit status.
IHSAA bylaws reserve two seats for “qualified minorities,” defined as “an individual other than a white male or female,” according to the lawsuit.
“This is an overt racial classification that treats individuals differently solely based on race for the purpose of allocating positions of institutional authority,” state attorneys wrote in the suit.
In a statement, IHSAA leadership said the organization “is disappointed that litigation was filed despite our willingness to consider the Attorney General’s concerns through our established governance and bylaw review processes.”
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The IHSAA was founded in 1903 as a privately funded nonprofit. Today, the organization claims more than 400 high schools as members.
“Our purpose is to ensure the high school student-athletes can experience rewarding opportunities on the field or court, develop meaningful and fulfilling relationships with coaches and teammates — all without superseding academics as each student-athlete’s ultimate priority,” IHSAA officials said in a statement.
“The IHSAA disagrees with any suggestion that our bylaws violate federal and state civil rights laws or in any way constitute an abuse of its nonprofit status. To the contrary the IHSAA is committed to serving all student-athletes and member schools throughout Indiana. Consistent with that mission, we value broad representation and diverse perspectives among those who help guide and support interscholastic athletics across the state. For more than a century, the IHSAA has governed high school athletics on behalf of its member schools. It is unfortunate that distractions like today’s lawsuit take away from what really matters: the student-athletes.”
State alleges bylaws discriminate
Earlier iterations of IHSAA bylaws reserved several board seats for what it termed minority directors, though the definition periodically changed since the practice started in 1993.
One version reserved the seats for “an individual other than a white male,” another for “urban school representatives,” according to the lawsuit.
“In all its iterations over the last 33 years it has been maintained, IHSAA’s minority quota has operated as an express, discriminatory racial classification,” state attorneys wrote in the suit. “It categorizes all individuals into two groups — those who are ‘white’ and those who are not — for the sole purpose of allocating seats on IHSAA’s governing Board. It excludes white males and white females from eligibility for the reserved minority seats solely because of their race.”
The lawsuit marks an escalation in the attorney general’s fight with the IHSAA.
Rokita asked the nonprofit organization to eliminate the quota in April, but the board declined. Instead, the IHSAA suggested it might consider changing its bylaws in 2027, according to a news release Thursday.
The office filed the lawsuit this week after sending additional notice to the IHSAA, which held an executive committee meeting in August.
“Hoosier students should not be governed by a sports association that picks its leaders based on race,” Rokita said in the release. “IHSAA’s quota tells kids that skin color, rather than merit, is an appropriate way to judge people.”
“That lesson has no place in Indiana’s education system, and, regardless, the law does not permit it,” he said. “The IHSAA exists to build character. A racial litmus test for choosing leadership on the IHSAA’s board does the opposite, and after months of delay, the Association left us no choice but to take legal action.”
The state is seeking a permanent injunction for the IHSAA to eliminate the “qualified minorities” provision from its bylaws, and permanently enjoin the organization from using race as a criteria for allocating board leadership in future bylaws or policy. The lawsuit also asks the court to declare IHSAA’s existing bylaws violate state law.
This story has been updated to include comment from the IHSAA.
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