Supreme Court decides Alabama gender bias case

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Roderick Jackson, an Alabama high school basketball coach who was fired when he complained that his girls’ basketball team wasn’t treated as well as the boys’ team – and won a pivotal Supreme Court ruling – has reached a settlement that includes a school board promise of equal facilities.

“My aim all along was to ensure fair treatment for Birmingham female athletes and this agreement, at long last, should guarantee that happens,” Jackson said.

Under the settlement reached Tuesday night with the Birmingham Board of Education, Jackson will receive $50,000, his lawyers will receive $340,000, and the board will take all necessary steps to provide female athletes with facilities comparable to those used by male athletes. Jackson had complained in part that his players had to practice in a gym built in 1908 rather than a new one used by boys.

The settlement also assures that Jackson will remain the girls’ basketball coach at Jackson-Olin High School. He had been rehired as interim coach by the Birmingham system earlier.

Jackson sued in 2001 after he was fired as a teacher and girls’ coach at Ensley High, which has since merged with Jackson-Olin.

His case gained national attention last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Title IX gender equity law protects whistleblowers as well as the direct victims of discrimination. Lower courts had found that Title IX did not authorize retaliation claims.

The high court ruling allowed Jackson to proceed with his Title IX lawsuit; a trial had been scheduled to begin Dec. 11.

“Roderick Jackson stood up for his girls, and in the process helped set an important precedent that ensures that people cannot be punished for standing up to fight discrimination,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, which represented him along with two Birmingham lawyers.

Jackson said there were severe inequities between his girls’ team and the boys’ team, coached by the school’s athletics director. Unlike the boys, the girls didn’t have access to the same expense account, had to car pool rather than take a bus to away games and were forced to practice in an old unheated gym rather than the new one where both teams played their games.

The board of education had argued that Jackson didn’t have a right to file a Title IX lawsuit because he personally suffered no sex discrimination, and claimed he was fired for poor performance, not whistleblowing.

Kenneth L. Thomas, an attorney for the board, said it maintains there was no wrongdoing on its part and “unequivocally denies” that female athletes were treated unequally.