She thought the opportunity would bring even more girls of color into the sport she loves. Instead, Smith says the Strawberry Mansion team was under-resourced from the start and that the district’s treatment of the team put the girls at a disadvantage. She says while the girls initially had the support of the school administration, things took a turn for the worse after a change in leadership and plans to move the team from junior varsity to varsity level were scrapped. The lawsuit filed last fall claims that “the District funds, supports and encourages girls at schools like Northeast” — a top-performing public school in the city with a championship-winning field hockey team — “to play Lacrosse while refusing to make those opportunities available to girls of color at schools like Strawberry Mansion High School.” The suit also alleges that the funding the school did have available went mostly to boys’ sports, offering a double whammy of injustice for the female athletes: "The Strawberry Mansion girls' team were not provided complete uniforms or cleats but the football team received complete uniforms and proper footwear."