|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
STATEMENT OF RODERICK
PLAINTIFF IN JACKSON V. BIRMINGHAM BOARD OF EDUCATION,
ON TITLE IX CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT
Good afternoon. My name is Roderick Jackson, and I am a teacher and the Acting Head Coach of the girls’ basketball team at
From 1999 until May, 2001, I was the head coach of the girls’ basketball team at Ensley. We had a good team. They played good ball, they worked hard, and they won many games. In fact, six of my seven seniors who graduated in 2001 received college scholarships.
But my team didn’t have it easy, and the girls were treated worse than the boys in many ways. The girls were not allowed to use the new, regulation, gym used by the boys’ team; instead, the girls had to practice and play in the old gym with its wooden backboards, bent rims and no heat. Although the boys’ team was transported to away games by bus, the girls had to make their own arrangements to travel by car when their games were scheduled at different times from the boys’ games. The girls also couldn’t get to some of the amenities available to the boys, including the ice machine. On one occasion, for example, I was forced to break into the ice machine with a screw driver to put ice on an injured player.
Money was another major problem. The girls were routinely denied any share of the money donated to the school athletics program by the City of Birmingham – of the $8,000 donated one year, for example, the girls never saw a dime. While the boys’ team was allowed to keep the money from admissions and from concession sales during their games, the girls were not. To add insult to injury, the fact that teams had to pay for their own game officials meant that not being able to keep those funds caused very serious problems.
To me, this is just unfair. So I went through the chain of command – from the school Athletic Director, to the Principal, to the Athletics Director of the system, to the Director of High Schools in
Why I was fired is clear cut. I spoke up on an issue that no one was ready to deal with, an unpopular issue, and I got penalized for it. I not only lost the pleasure of coaching; I lost the extra income I earned and the higher retirement benefits I would have gotten based on that money. I was labeled a troublemaker and for two and one-half years was turned down for every coaching position I applied for at other schools. And the young ladies at Ensley lost the only person who was willing to speak up for them.
So I went to court to try to get my job back. I didn’t have a lawyer at the time of the court of appeals argument, and the court ultimately dismissed my case, saying that in Title IX, Congress was silent on whether retaliation was specifically prohibited and that I couldn’t sue. I’m not a lawyer, but that doesn’t seem right to me. I never got a chance to present, and the court never got a chance to hear, the merits of my case: the facts on the inequities the girls suffered or the subsequent retaliation against me.
That’s why I’m so pleased that the National Women’s
Since last fall, I have been serving as Acting Head Coach for the Ensley basketball team. I was rehired in this capacity once there was a change in the school administration and once my case started getting some publicity in the local press. But I do not know whether I will be offered a permanent position as the Head Coach again, and many of the inequities about which I originally complained have not been corrected. For example, my girls’ team is still forced to frequently practice in the old, unheated gym because the team is not allowed access to the new gym until after the boys’ team has finished its practices – which would mean having to stay at school until very late in the evening. And the girls are still not allowed to get the admissions money that’s taken in during their games. There is more to be done before Ensley’s sports program is fair.
I have a son and a daughter, and I want them both to be treated equally in their educational opportunities. I want the law that requires that, Title IX, to be enforced. And that is true for other civil rights laws too. I want to be able to do my part to ensure that my son and daughter, and the girls on my team, are treated fairly when they play sports. I hope that the Supreme Court will agree that I have the right to do that and that my school can’t punish me for speaking up. Thank you.
***
