By
Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com
The bottom
line is this: If Penn State women’s basketball Coach Rene
Portland had said she did not want Jewish or black players
on her team, she would have been fired within a week.
It has been
19 years, though, since Portland said she did not want
lesbians on her team and she is still gainfully employed by
the university (which has a non-discrimination policy based
on sexual orientation). And now Portland is lobbing
accusations at a former player who said the coach ran her
off the team perceiving she was a lesbian.
Last week,
the National Center for Lesbian Rights
sent a letter on behalf of former player Jennifer Harris to
University President Graham Spanier, demanding that action
be taken against Portland for her “decades-long policy of
harassing players whom Coach Portland believed to be
lesbians.” The complaint says that “despite Harris’
outstanding performance as a player during her two-year
career at Penn State from 2003 to 2005, Coach Portland
repeatedly questioned Harris about her sexual orientation,
repeatedly threatened to kick Harris off the team if she
found out Harris was a lesbian, and eventually told other
players not to associate with Harris because she believed
that Harris was gay. In 2005, Coach Portland abruptly told
Harris to find somewhere else to play.”
In response, Portland (with a
578-204 record in 26 years of coaching)
denied the charges and said that Harris had a poor
attitude and work ethic and did not meet team performance
standards on or off the court. "She engaged in
disrespectful, profane and belligerent behavior toward
coaches and teammates, and she exhibited a work ethic and
attitude that were unsatisfactory and detrimental to the
success of our team," Portland said. This upset NCLR, which
said the comments were retaliatory and inaccurate. The group
has threatened to sue unless Penn State retracts the
statement.
“The
October 14, 2005 statement contains numerous defamatory
statements about Ms. Harris as an athlete and a student,”
NCLR said in a statement. “These statements are belied by
the public record of Ms. Harris’ exemplary athletic and
academic record at Penn State. They also are flatly
contradicted by public statements lauding Ms. Harris’
dedication and performance made by Coach Portland and
members of her coaching staff as recently as the end of last
season, immediately prior to Harris’ unlawful termination
from the Penn State women’s basketball team. The
University’s statement also includes false and
discriminatory remarks about Ms. Harris’ attitude and work
ethic. These remarks are not only false, they are based on
offensive stereotypes that are a continuation of Coach
Portland’s prior harassment of Ms. Harris based on her race,
gender, and perceived sexual orientation.”
Harris, who
has since transferred to James Madison and says she is not a
lesbian, started in 22 games for Penn State in the 2004-05
season, averaging 10.4 points per game. She was third on the
team in points (313), steals (38) and assists (42).
University
spokesman Bill Mahon told AP that Portland was free to
comment as she saw fit. "To demand that we take an
individual's free speech away from them is wrong," Mahon
said Monday. "I'm sure it's normal for anybody to respond
when allegations are made against them in the front pages of
newspapers."
"There is
no First Amendment right to make false and malicious
allegations," Karen Doering, Harris' lawyer with the NCLA,
told the Daily Collegian. "It doesn't take a lot of
investigation by the university to see that coach Portland's
statement contains false information."
"We don't
go out and fire people because somebody made an allegation,"
Mahon responded to the Daily Collegian. "I think the center
ought to step back if they're interested in finding out what
happened here. Why don't we let the process occur? We need a
couple days to look into the allegations. We're happy to do
that because they're serious allegations."
Helen
Carroll, who runs the homophobia in sports project for NCLR,
said the Portland case was significant. “This is the hottest
case to ever hit women's sports concerning the treatment of
perceived lesbian athletes and could be the case to really
change climate in college athletics,” Carroll told
Outsports.
“Negative
recruiting,” where a coach subtly (or not) implying that a
rival is gay in attempt to scare the parents of a recruit,
is a dirty secret in women’s college basketball. Portland is
not even subtle about her dislike of lesbians ("I
will not have it in my program”) even though
she said she fully supports the
university's policy against discrimination. Her
continued support from the Penn State administrators
shows how pervasive homophobia is in the sports world.
Oct. 18, 2005
