The game isn’t over for Highland Park ISD’s 2024-25 varsity soccer team. The parent of a player has taken her fight to reinstate HP’s forfeited state championship to district court.
Highland Park surrendered its title on April 11, hours after defeating Liberty Hill 2-0, when HP officials discovered that their team had used an academically ineligible player in the game, and self-reported the violation to the UIL.
The ineligible student was earning a grade of below 70 in precalculus. Under State Board of Education rules, precalculus is treated as an honors course and exempt from no pass no play.
But that’s not the case in Highland Park ISD, which uses a stricter standard to determine whether students are eligible to take the field. If a school district has a more rigorous no pass no play standard, then the UIL uses that standard to determine players’ eligibility.
In her Petition filed in Travis County District Court on Sept. 5, the parent argues that the UIL misinterpreted state law, exceeded its authority, and violated its own and State Board of Education rules when it applied HPISD’s no pass no play standard and forced the soccer team to forfeit its championship.
That decision, she says, created unequal opportunities for all student athletes, and stigmatized her and her son.
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She points to evidence that state lawmakers intended to achieve uniformity when they amended no pass no play rules in 2007, and did not mean to leave school districts with discretion to impose stricter rules than those mandated by the State Board of Education.
She states that the UIL’s decision to permit districts to impose their own no pass no play standards constituted administrative rulemaking, which means the agency needed to, but did not, provide the public with notice and an opportunity for comment.
Additionally, she argues that the agency exceeded its authority in this rulemaking — it was not empowered to ignore conflicting State Board of Education and UIL rules.
As a result of the UIL decision, the parent says, she and her son have received “vicious and public hate mail such as ‘you cheated to get to the top,’ ‘cheaters.never.win,’ ‘Karma doesn’t forget an address,’ ‘might wanna return the stolen property,’ and ‘not enough hush money?’” The appearance of cheating, the parent says, may cause them far-reaching reputational damage.
The parent had previously appealed to the UIL State Executive Committee, which ruled against her on July 9.
The parent has asked the court to declare UIL rules permitting districts to impose stricter-than-baseline no pass no play standards invalid, vacate the determination that the player was ineligible, and restore HPISD’s state soccer title.
