PORTLAND – A judge will decide whether boys should be allowed to play high school field hockey alongside girls.

Justice Robert E. Crowley began hearing testimony this week in a civil case pitting the Maine Human Rights Commission and two teen-age boys against the Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees interscholastic activities in high schools.

The commission has asked the judge to lift the decade-old ban on boys playing high school field hockey, saying it violates Maine’s Human Rights Act, which guarantees equal opportunity in athletics.

But the MPA argues that girls are under-represented on the state’s athletic fields, and that allowing a boy onto an all-girls team would take away an opportunity for a girl. The ban on boys is in the interest of affirmative action and gender equity, the MPA contends.

Crowley, who began hearing testimony Wednesday, is expected to rule in Cumberland County Superior Court after the testimony concludes next week. The judge’s ruling is likely to teeter on his interpretation of the term “equal opportunity” as it pertains to athletics in the Maine law.

The Maine supreme court could eventually have the final word on the issue.

The legal battle originally centered around Portland High School student Jeremy Ellis, who in 1996 began trying to gain the right to play field hockey, a sport the MPA has protected for girls since the adoption of an affirmative-action plan in 1987.

As a freshman and sophomore, Ellis was allowed to practice with Portland’s junior varsity, but he could not play in games.

Ellis, now a 17-year-old junior, did not participate last fall and is undecided if he will play this fall, even if the lawsuit prevails, said his mother, Joanne Ellis.

Another teen, Jessie Turcotte, also has joined the lawsuit. Turcotte, 16, practiced with the field hockey team during his freshman and sophomore years at Lisbon High School.

Last fall, while attending St. Dominic’s Regional High School in Lewiston, he was prohibited from playing at all.

Turcotte, who attended Wednesday’s hearing with his mother, said he will compete for the starting goalie position if the rule is changed by the judge. He said the girls on the team support his effort.

“They don’t have any problem with it,” said Turcotte, a stocky teen who fell in love with the game in middle school.

The Maine Human Rights Commission in 1997 recommended that Ellis be allowed to play. At the time, he was among a handful of Maine boys who wanted to play field hockey at the varsity level.