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March Badness

You may have heard that the Penn State women's basketball coach resigned recently amid controversy that she did not allow openly gay women to play on her team. Here's an excerpt from the story at Sports Illustrated:

"The coach faced a series of discrimination allegations during her tenure. Most recently, Portland and Penn State settled a lawsuit in February by former player Jennifer Harris, who claimed Portland had a 'no-lesbian' policy on her team."

Full Story: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c om/2007/basketball/ncaa/wires/ 03/22/2060.ap.bkw.penn.st.port land.resigns.4th.ld.writethru. 0191/

Portland had over 600 wins in her career. That in itself is impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the fact that she didn't allow lesbians to play for her and she still managed to suit up a full team every year. Actually, that's more than impressive - it's a freakin' miracle.

All kidding aside, though, the sad part is that there are women like Rene Portland who know the kind of discrimination and stereotyping women in general have faced in sport and yet they are still willing to segregate and marginalize other women. Lesbians played a huge role in the women's movement and the women in sports movement - without them Title IX may never have come about and Rene Portland might not have ever been able to coach basketball for a major university, and as repayment she doesn't allow them on her teams. It's only been around 30 years since Title IX was enacted, and already Rene Portland has forgotten who helped her get where she is (was) today. I guess the road from unity to ungratefulness isn't as long as we thought.

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