Any way you look at it, a woman referee being barred from officiating a boys’ basketball game at the private St. Mary’s Academy near Topeka has some sexist overtones.

When Michelle Campbell, a retired police officer who lives in Ozawkie, reported to officiate the game at St. Mary’s on Feb. 2, she was told her services wouldn’t be needed. The athletic director at the private Catholic school reportedly told Campbell that he would pay her but, “We don’t allow women to referee here : It’s something to do with women having authority over men.”

Two male referees confirmed the athletic director’s comments and expressed their shock at the situation involving Campbell, who has been working as a referee for the Topeka Officials Association for two years. The referee scheduled to work the game with Campbell walked away from the job, and the other, who had completed his games, said he bought himself some food and left a $41 tip to get rid of the $50 fee he had been paid.

Although the stand-up actions of her fellow referees were heartening, this incident is startling and disappointing in this era of supposed sexual equality. It also raises questions about supporting private schools with such policies through the use of publicly funded school vouchers.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association, which oversees a variety of extracurricular activities, has set a March 11 hearing to discuss the incident.

In the meantime, the Rev. Vicente Griego, the headmaster at St. Mary’s, decided to step in to try to clarify the situation. What he ended up doing, however, was more or less confirming that the school’s policy on referees has a distinct sexist component.

It’s not a matter of “women having authority over men,” Griego explained, it’s about “role models.” “The formation of adolescent boys is best accomplished by male role models, as the formation of girls is best accomplished by women. Hence, in boys athletic competitions, it’s important that the various role models be men.”

Griego further explained that, of course, St. Mary’s “has many honorable ladies of talent and erudition” on its faculty and staff, but because boys in the school were taught to “treat ladies with deference, we cannot place them in an aggressive athletic competition where they are forced to play inhibited by their concern about running into a female referee.”

Really. That rationale may have rung true in the mid-19th century, but in 2008, it reeks of the kind of sexism designed to keep a woman “in her place.”

Campbell is a qualified referee who was ready and willing to provide an essential service to a youth sports activity for a fee that can only be described as a pittance. She was barred from doing that job for one reason: because she was a woman. As a private school, St. Mary’s can set such a policy, but it’s not a policy that should be tolerated at an event sanctioned by the KSHSAA.