A federal judge has dismissed Edgewood High School’s lawsuit against the city of Madison over the city’s refusal to allow the installation of lights at the school’s athletic field.
Edgewood did not prove that the city discriminated against the school on religious grounds in the multiyear battle over lights that would allow the school to host nighttime football games, as the school had alleged, U.S. District Judge William Conley said in a 28-page ruling issued late Friday.
In 2021, the City Council voted against an appeal by the private Catholic school to reverse the denial of a permit to install four light poles on the field.
Edgewood argued in court that city approval of stadium lights at UW-Madison’s tennis stadium and at Madison Memorial High School showed the city was treating secular institutions better than their religious counterparts.
But Memorial was merely replacing its light poles and UW’s stadium was subject to different zoning rules and is not near a residential area, unlike Edgewood, Conley said.
“Edgewood has not shown that either of its proposed comparators were actually treated better under the same approval process as Edgewood, as their lighting applications were submitted at different (times), under entirely different rules and markedly different circumstances,” Conley said.
Edgewood also did not show that it was burdened by having to play nighttime football games at a field off campus, the judge said. The religious school, like Madison East High School, often plays games at Breese Stevens Field.