A Montgomery Circuit Court judge has approved a temporary restraining order that declares a Marbury High School student-athlete immediately eligible to play football and prohibits the Alabama High School Athletic Association from enforcing its transfer rule.

Fifteenth Judicial Court Presiding Judge J.R. Gaines granted the TRO based on a complaint filed by the Marbury student’s father, attorney Michael Kidd.

The order also prohibits the AHSAA from “declaring any contest where the plaintiff participates forfeited … providing that the forgoing order is in affect [sic] at the time the Plaintiff participates in said contest.”

The complaint also raises a larger issue that could change the face of cheerleading in AHSAA schools. Currently, cheerleading is not a sanctioned AHSAA sport and therefore any cheerleader who transfers is immediately eligible to compete in cheer tournaments. Kidd argues that the transfer rule, which was adapted before cheerleading had competitions and requires the transferring student to sit out of competition for a year, should not exempt cheerleaders now.

The complaint says the rule is “in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution of the United States of America as applied to the State of Alabama through the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States of America and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.”

Kidd also says that the defendants “fraudulently and arbitrarily enforce said rule as it favors some member institutions and their athletes over others.”

RELATED: Coaches react to AHSAA transfers

A hearing on Kidd’s complaint is scheduled for Tuesday, he said. AHSAA Director of Communications Ron Ingram referred AL.com to the association’s law firm, Melton, Espy & Williams, after a request for a comment on the legal action. Efforts to reach the law firm were not immediately successful.

Kidd’s son, Watson Troy Kidd, transferred from Prattville High School to Marbury after his freshman year, the attorney said. The Autauga County Board of Education has a school choice policy that eliminated school zones within the county.

Kidd said his family had not made a bona fide move as required by AHSAA transfer rules. “My son transferred to Marbury and plays football and baseball. Under Alabama High School Athletic Association rules, [he] was going to have to sit out a year even though the county was fine with him transferring, but under Alabama High School Athletic Association rules he had to sit out.

“I started looking to see if I could find a loophole in the rule,” Kidd said. “From what I had seen and read, a lot of people are unhappy with the transfer rule … on the surface, it appears that it applies to some schools and not to others. There seemed to be a lot of inconsistency.”

Kidd said in his 11-page complaint to the Circuit Court, that Marbury High School principal Bill Harris had been told by an AHSAA investigator that a Marbury student who transferred to Holtville High “should not be immediately eligible to play varsity athletics. In direct opposition to their own internal findings, the AHSAA did not declare the student athlete ineligible for violating the AHSAA Transfer Rule.”

Kidd said during his work on the issue that started over the summer he discovered that cheerleading was exempt from the transfer rule and cheerleaders are seen as a support group for schools’ teams and their communities.

“Fifteen years or so ago, they started a cheer tournament,” Kidd said. “It goes over about a six-week period, and they have regional tournaments and a state tournament. The Alabama High School Athletic Association has refused to say cheerleading is a sanctioned sport. I think the refusal of the Alabama High School Athletic Association to acknowledge that cheerleading is a sanctioned sport is a travesty.

“The reason they [AHSAA] give for cheerleaders being exempt is that they don’t compete. When the rule was written, that was true, but now they compete at a high level. Several schools take their teams to national competitions at Daytona Beach or Orlando at Disney World.”

Kidd said in his complaint that the Alabama Supreme Court “has long held that a Circuit Court may overrule the rules and/or decisions of the AHSAA ‘if the acts of the association are the result of fraud, lack of jurisdiction, collusion or arbitrariness’ and in those cases ‘the courts will intervene to protect an injured parties’ rights.’”

The attorney also said, “I don’t think there is a reason or rational basis to exclude cheerleading. They are a sport just like any other sport” and should fall under the AHSAA’s transfer rule.

“Also, I think we’re going to find through discovery it’s arbitrary who gets an exemption and who doesn’t,” Kidd said. “I think that’s the reason a lot of coaches and parents are upset is that it is so subjective.

“I think the state is going to go with school choice,” Kidd said. “My brother-in-law is on the school board in Autauga County and they say, ‘We want kids to go where they have the best opportunity.’ I played college baseball and would say I’d not be where I am today without that. I think everyone would say athletics is an important part of education.”