Sydney, who had tried out and made a spot on an Amateur Athletic Union basketball team, told ABC7 that she “was like, really bummed when I found out I couldn’t play with the boys, because I’m better than them”.

Legendary New York Liberty player Teresa Weatherspoon said she couldn’t understand why the school would take such a step to prevent a girl playing basketball.

“We are obligated to teach our kids,” she said. “We’re obligated to send them to another level, we’re obligated to show them who they can be.”

A spokesman for the Newark Archdiocese said that St. Theresa’s parent-student handbook explicitly states that parents who involve the school in legal matters “will be requested to remove their children immediately from the school”, and that the expulsion of his daughters “should not have come as a surprise” to Scott Phillips.

This girl asked to play on the boys’ basketball team. Four months later, she was expelled