Fired girls coach took heroic stand

There are all too few heroes in life. Coach Roderick Jackson is a gem-like shining emblem for us all to emulate. He's a man on an important mission.

He's the high school girls basketball coach from Alabama whose case goes before the U.S. Supreme Court in late November. He was fired, he believes, for standing up against school authorities and demanding equal treatment under Title IX for his girls.

His girls team at Ensley High School in Birmingham was forced to practice in a 100-year-old gym that didn't meet today's standards for size and wasn't heated in the winter. The basketball rings were warped and the equipment was second-class. The girls junior varsity team was at one point suspended, while the boys team was not. Ensley High told its girl players to go to the back of the bus in no uncertain terms. Girl players could only watch with envy as the boys team played in a new facility with all the requisite comforts.

When Jackson complained about the unfair, gender-based treatment, he started receiving negative evaluations. He was fired in the spring of 2001. He sued under Title IX, the landmark 1972 law that bars discrimination in support of school sports based on gender. Two lower courts said, in essence, since Jackson was not a student (to wit, the law considers him a private party) he cannot sue under Title IX.

There are several "Kodak Moments" in this case. First, the fact that a male coach would sue to vindicate the rights of his (predominantly) lower-income female students is as brilliant a point of light as one could envision. OK, so he's not a female student — the people Congress envisioned protecting when it passed Title IX into law. But what else were these girls to do?

Did Congress really expect 14-year-old minority girls from Alabama to undertake a Title IX lawsuit in their own behalf? They probably wouldn't have the experience or education to understand their mistreatment by the school — much less the wherewithal to launch a lawsuit to challenge authorities. So strapped was Jackson for resources to fight this suit, he represented himself on appeal.

The second "Kodak Moment" comes in the form of an unlikely ally for Jackson in his valiant quest. The Bush administration's Solicitor General Theodore Olsen was asked to review the case last year. Olsen filed a friend of the court brief asking the justices to accept the case and find in favor of Jackson. And the administration really gets it this time, stating in its brief, "Teachers and coaches are often in a much better position to identify sex discrimination and express opposition to it than are the students who are denied equal educational opportunities."