A girls' team, a fired coach, and Title IX
When coach Roderick Jackson complained that his girls' basketball team was being treated like second-class citizens at Ensley High School in Birmingham, Ala., school administrators took firm and immediate action - against Coach Jackson.
"I was told that I was not a team player, that I needed to play ball or I was going to make problems for myself," Mr. Jackson says. "And they weren't joking." He was fired.
Incensed, Jackson filed suit in federal court under Title IX, which outlaws gender discrimination in public education. To his surprise both a federal judge and a federal appeals court panel threw out his lawsuit saying the law bans sex discrimination, but does not cover acts of retaliation against someone like a coach who fights for what he or she sees as parity on the playing field.
Monday, the US Supreme Court is expected to announce whether it will take up Jackson's case and decide for the entire nation whether the protections of Title IX must be applied broadly in a way that would permit Jackson's suit, or narrowly in a way that would exclude it.
"If the decision [of the appeals court] is left to stand and become the law, it really sets a very bad example and I think would make people cautious about stepping up to protect the rights of those who have been discriminated against," says Walter Dellinger, a Duke University Law School professor and former acting US solicitor general. Mr. Dellinger was hired by the National Women's Law Center in Washington to represent Jackson before the high court.
The case is being closely followed by civil rights activists who are concerned about the potential implications of the case on a range of civil rights laws. If the Supreme Court adopts a restrictive view of Title IX, it will make it more difficult for individuals to fight discrimination.
Others say the case is important because it confronts the proper role of judges in interpreting the law rather than rewriting it through expansive rulings.
Kenneth Thomas, who represents the Birmingham Board of Education, disputes Jackson's portrayal of the case. "We have a story to tell, too," Mr. Thomas says. "All of the facts are not as bad as he has painted them."
Thomas says that if Jackson loses at the Supreme Court, those fired for reporting discrimination will still have recourse to sue for retaliation. He says other civil rights and employment discrimination laws cover retaliatory actions, but Congress never intended to permit such lawsuits under Title IX.
"There is nothing to prevent Congress from amending Title IX to include an antiretaliation provision," he notes.
In its decision rejecting Jackson's case, a three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that Title IX does not permit an individual to sue for an act of retaliation.
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