Case Name:
WEIGEL V. WIAA
Case Status:
Case WonWILL secured a waiver from the WIAA allowing our client to play varsity softball.
Case Background
Case Name: Weigel v. WIAA
Type of Case: Limited Government Project
Court: Sauk County Circuit Court
Case Number: 2025CV000020
Filed On: January 23, 2025
Current Status: WILL secured a waiver from the WIAA allowing our client to play varsity softball.
WILL sued the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) and the Baraboo School District for wrongfully preventing a student from participating in school-sponsored and funded athletic co-curricular programming.
Meet the Client
The Weigel family’s oldest daughter began high school at a small Christian school in Baraboo that did not offer athletic programming. The family later transferred her into their residential school district, where the family has lived for generations. That change also meant she could participate in high school sports for the first time. She has a strong passion for softball and has played for years in a recreational league. On transferring to Baraboo High School she was told she was ineligible to play for a full year because of the WIAA’s transfer rules. The school filed a waiver request, the WIAA rejected it and denied her appeal, and the school accepted that decision as final.
Legal Arguments
The WIAA determined the student was ineligible for one year under its subjective transfer rules and denied a request to waive them. WILL argues the Baraboo School District has unlawfully given control over who may participate in taxpayer-funded co-curricular activities to a purportedly private entity not controlled by any accountable government actor.
Athletic co-curricular programming at public high schools is part of a student’s well-rounded education. The Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction is constitutionally vested with supervisory control over all public instruction in the state, and the WIAA’s decisions sit outside that reach. Public schools that have outsourced to the WIAA the ability to decide which students may participate in co-curricular activities are violating the law.
Lawyers
Lucas Vebber, Deputy Counsel; Skylar Croy, Associate Counsel
CASE DOCUMENTS
- Complaint, January 2025
- Temporary Injunction, March 2025
- WIAA Letter, May 2025
Meet the Client
The Weigel family’s oldest daughter began her high school career at a small Christian school in Baraboo which did not offer athletic programming. Shortly after, the Weigel’s youngest child was diagnosed with a rare, but serious, blood condition requiring significant medical care.
The Weigel family made tremendous sacrifices during this time. Their daughter spent nine weeks in the hospital and her mother Emily quit her full-time job in order to be able to provide their youngest daughter with the care needed for her continued recovery. However, with significant medical care needs and the stark loss of Emily’s employment income, the Weigel family made the decision to transfer their other daughter from private school into their residential school district–where the family has lived for generations.
This change, although difficult, also meant that their daughter could participate in high school sports for the first time. Or so she thought.
Their daughter has a strong passion for softball and has played it for years in a recreational league but has never even had the opportunity to participate in a high school athletics program. Upon transferring to Baraboo High School, she was told she was ineligible to play for a full year because of the WIAA’s transfer rules. The school worked with her to file a waiver request of those rules, and the WIAA rejected her waiver and denied her appeal. The school accepted that decision as final.
