Princehoward Yee and his father Howard Yee leave the federal courthouse in Portland Wednesday. Howard Yee sued Deering High School Principal Gregg Palmer over Palmer’s decision to not let Princehoward play baseball. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald)
A federal judge ruled Wednesday against a father seeking an injunction to allow a Deering High student to play varsity baseball.
Howard Yee had filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to allow his son to attempt to make the varsity team at Deering. The lawsuit claimed that Yee and his son, Princehoward Yee, were denied due process when Deering Principal Gregg Palmer decided the student could not play on the varsity team.
Princehoward Yee, 15, who goes by his legal middle name Barbecue, lives in Falmouth and was approved to enroll as a full-time student at Deering on Jan. 25. A promising baseball player, Yee had played on the Deering varsity as a freshman while taking two classes at the school. He had returned to being home-schooled at the start of the 2017-18 school year. In March, the Yee family was informed that the student would not be eligible to play varsity baseball.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Nancy Torresen ruled that the lawsuit failed to prove a likelihood for success that Yee was denied procedural due process. Torresen also made it clear that she believed the Yees were given ample notice that acceptance as a student did not guarantee a right to varsity extracurricular activities.
The Yees’ lawyer, Michael Waxman, said after the hearing at U.S. District Court in Portland he was unsure if the Yees would pursue the case further.
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