The More Things Change....

Not much has changed.
Civil engineering faculty in 1930 (MIT Museum photo)

Are you surprised?

Boston Globe: Tenure at MIT still largely a male domain

Just one out of 25 faculty members granted tenure this year at MIT is female, a gender imbalance that appears to contrast with the university's decade-old effort to boost the status of women.

Women have been achieving tenure at a lower rater than men at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the past 10 years, according to an MIT analysis of junior faculty. Of the tenured faculty, 16 percent are women, up from 10.5 percent a decade ago, but still too big a gap, several professors said.

The point was brought home recently when the school's in-house newspaper published a portrait gallery of the faculty members granted tenure this year; among the sea of male faces was the lone woman.

England Pays Women Footballers a Pittance

BBCSport: England women angry at £40 wage

Teamtalk (uk): England's women earned £40 a day
England women's team can scarcely believe their talent is worth only £40-a-day each - the payment they received at the recent World Cup.

England's Football Association probably spent more money on airfare for all the mucky-mucks to go to China to pat themselves on the back about all they've done for women's football. While paying the players like counter help at McDonald's. Go ahead, wear the national team jersey for pride. Because you're not in it for the money, unless you're a man.

No wonder Kelly Smith kissed her boots -- she was looking for holes.

Civil Rights Pioneer John Lewis: "To discriminate against someone because they are gay: It is wrong, it is wrong, It. Is. Not. Right."

John Lewis makes me proud to be an American:

Scalito Court Limits Employment Law

WaPo: Supreme Court Limits Pay Discrimination Suits
Justices Back 180-Day Deadline for Claims

Today the Supreme Court said a worker can be discriminated against for years, and if they sue for back pay, they can only get it for the preceding 180 days before they file suit. This is a massive change in prior precedent, and gives employers an incentive not to tell employees how much their co-workers are paid. How do you know you're being discriminated against if you don't know what everyone else makes? So most employers make a big point of telling employees not to tell each other what they make.

This decision ignores the practical realities of the workplace. Many workers are still on probation for the first 180 days. They're supposed to be figuring out they're being discriminated against, and hiring a lawyer, while they're trying to hold on to a new job? Ridiculous.

''This short deadline reflects Congress's strong preference for the prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through voluntary conciliation and cooperation,'' Alito said.

The decision was written by Strip Search Sammy Alito, and we have these weasel Democrats to thank for his presence on the court, because they voted for cloture and let Alito through:

Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantwell (WA), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

In dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls on Congress to pass legislation overturning this cramped view of discrimination law; let's hope the Democrats in Congress can find a little courage on this one.

It Isn't Your Imagination

Typical Sunday talk show panel: Four white men, one white woman, no minorities
All those talking head shows are filled with white men. Men outnumber women 4 to 1; white outnumber minorities 7 to 1.



Media Matters for America: Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows

Racism Lives, USA, 2007

Shaquanda Cotton (from Free Shaquanda Cotton website)

Miami, Florida: Tennis player Serena Williams is racially abused by a white male spectator who tells her to "hit the ball into the net like any nigger would".

Paris, Texas: A 15-year-old black girl, Shaquanda Cotton, has been in jail for over a year of a seven year jail term for pushing a hall monitor at her high school in 2005. (The hall monitor was not injured; it was her first offense.) Three months earlier, the same judge sentenced a 14-year-old white girl convicted of arson for burning down her family's house to probation.

Georgia: The Georgia State Senate has dropped the bill that would have freed 19-year-old black man Genarlow Wilson, who will now rot in jail for another eight years for conduct that is now only a misdemeanor under Georgia law.

It's not just the South, either:

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Vaunted Harvard University has 41 varsity sports and not one black coach. This is not surprising given that the AD and his 13 senior administrators are also not black. The AD has hired coaches for 12 sports since he was hired in 2001; all his hires are white.

Good Reads

Heading into the studio to make platters today; here are some good reads out there today.

Brilliant at Breakfast: It's time to take health insurance out of the for-profit model

Yesterday's New York Times editorial gives Democrats a blueprint for moving forward to restore our constitutional democracy: The Must-Do List

Alicia Shepard, HuffPo: All Men, All the Time in News Business Are you surprised?

Welcome to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week #61: “He’s a Wifebeater But I Love Him!” Edition Yes, they are all Republicans.

For full coverage of the U.S. Attorney purge scandal, make sure to read Talking Points Memo; head to Firedoglake for Scooter Libby trial updates.

Sports News Updates

TOTALLY UNRELATED PHOTO: Jan Christensen's "Relative Value" on display at the MGM Gallery in Oslo. The painting featuring 16,311 dollars (12,400 euros) of banknotes glued to a canvas proved too tempting to thieves, who made off with it at the weekend.(AFP/Scapix/File)

Here are some updates on some wildly disparate sports stories we've followed here:

Jen Harris settled her case against Penn State and their lesbian-hating coach Rene the Weenie Portland. Terms were not disclosed, although Harris's lawyer said in a separate statement that Penn State would be taking steps to "further protect all students who have experienced discriminatory treatment". Read opinions on the settlement here, here, and here. As a veteran of many sexual harassment claims, I'm sure Penn State had dug up enough dirt on Harris that she didn't want to go to trial and be embarrassed. Even though Rene Portland probably knew none of it when she kicked Harris off the team for being a lesbian, courts have routinely allowed defendants to embarrass victims of sexual harassment in this situation. I hope the kid got a bucketload of money.

Ranger dancer Courtney Prince won a victory in her sexual harassment lawsuit against the New York Rangers. She will be given all paperwork generated by the Rangers in their internal investigation of her claims, and their investigation of five other claims, including the claim by Anucha Browne Sanders .

Liverpool's Welsh firebrand Craig Bellamy tells the truth about him teeing off against John Arne-Riise before their ChampionsLeague clash with Barcelona last week. Yup, he threatened his teammate with a golf club. Idiota.

Despite more and more national attention to his case, Genarlow Wilson still rots in jail in Georgia. The Georgia state senate has voted the bill that would allow his case to be reviewed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but they are on a two week recess.

You Go, Pre-Title IX Girls

Stephen Mally for The New York Times

Marlene Carver, 57, leading the pregame warm-ups for the Robins Late Bloomers last Wednesday.
NYTimes: Grannies Are Flexing Their Muscles, Gently

I don't have any nostalgia for six-a-side basketball or being forced to play in zones on the court. When I was in grade school we played that crazy game & I was always a defender, never a shooter, so I hated it; I never got to handle the ball! I love this article about the Granny Basketball League for that picture of those happy athletes finally getting their shot. If I had been born in 1953 instead of 1957, I would never have gotten to play high school sports. (Title IX became law in 1972.) If my sister had been born in 1957 rather than 1961, she wouldn't have gone to college on a basketball scholarship or played professionally. (Scholarships for women were first awarded by the AIAW in 1977.) I'm glad these women finally got a chance to play.

To the theme music from “The Sting,” members of the Cedar Rapids Sizzlers and the Robins Late Bloomers — two of the eight teams in the Granny Basketball League in Iowa, for women 50 and older — took the court. Dressed in white blouses, black bloomers and horizontally striped socks, the women lined up as they would have if their game had been played here in the 1920s.

[]

The games involve teams of six players. Two players from each side must remain in each of the three distinct sections of the court. Running and tight guarding are forbidden, and players can dribble only twice per possession.

Six-on-six basketball was an Iowa staple for girls for most of the 20th century, and it remained a source of pride long after the rest of the nation had adopted the five-on-five game.

Only the Granny Basketball League’s oldest participants saw or played the three-court game. Iowa switched to two courts in 1935, according to Troy Dannen, executive director of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. Six-on-six games were played exclusively from the late 1800s through 1984, when the style was challenged in court by three girls who argued that it damaged their chances for college scholarships.

To settle the suit, the state agreed to sanction five-on-five and six-on-six competition, with schools choosing which to play. The athletic union’s board voted in 1993 to end six-player teams. At the time, Dannen said, roughly 140 of the state’s 396 schools were still playing it.

But many in Iowa remain nostalgic for the old style and for the dynamic scorers it produced, like Denise Long and Molly Bolin. Long was the first woman drafted by an N.B.A. team; the San Francisco Warriors selected her in 1969, but the selection was disallowed because high school players could not be drafted. Bolin, who was nicknamed Machine Gun, starred in the Women’s Professional Basketball League, which existed from 1978 to 1981.

The state tournament at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines was the ultimate event for Iowa schoolgirls, and the championship game frequently sold out. Those memories play into the Granny Basketball League’s popularity.

“I’m 63,” said Linda Toerper, McPherson’s sister, who plays for the Sizzlers. “But I’m really 16.”

[]

The game also offers a second chance to women who never played in high school. Irene Reinking, a 69-year-old from Cedar Rapids who has 14 grandchildren, stopped playing after eighth grade. “My dad didn’t think practicing basketball was the most important thing in the world,” she said. “So I stayed on the farm.”

Right-Wing Fruitcakes Still After Title IX

The inimitable Michelle Akers [1999 World Cup]
Michelle Akers powers past her way past Brazil. She would later convert a penalty to seal her side's 2-0 semi-final triumph.
Copyright: FIFAworldcup.com / Brett Whitesell / Daniel Motz
Great, great article on Title IX in, of all places, a British paper, The Guardian (uk).

Steven Wells, Guardian (uk) Sportsblog: Why American sports are facing the ultimate Title fight
The Title IX law has been eroding sex discrimination in the US for 35 years, so it's no wonder the right-wing fruitcakes want to get rid of it.

Thirty-five years ago President Nixon signed Title IX - a 37-word law that banned sex discrimination in federally funded education. It revolutionised US sports, changed the lives of millions of women and girls, led to the formation of a professional women's baseball league and to the US women's soccer team winning two World Cups.

More importantly, Title IX smashed to smithereens the creaky old idea that sport is somehow inherently masculine. There are 10 times as many women playing high school sports as there were in 1972. Five times as many women now play sport in college.

And beyond the statistics, there's overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Title IX is the best thing ever to happen to US sports. "When I was growing up throwing slow balls in baseball-crazed Southern Illinois," writes Hank Shaw. "I didn't know a single girl in my class who was active in sports. Fast forward to the present: six of my seven nieces love playing sports. That's all the proof I need to cheer on Title IX."

Title IX has achieved "an explosion of female Olympic stars, college and professional women's teams playing to packed stadiums, new magazines aimed at female athletes. But most of all the freedom, strength and joy of a whole generation of young women," wrote Ruth Conniff in the Nation.

In short Title IX is the bee's knees, the cat's pyjamas and the bollocks of the most enormous dog. As good things go it's up there with love, rainbows and orgasms.

Which means, of course, that it's attacked relentlessly by the gibbering jihadists of right-wing fruitcakery. Bush administration employee Jessica Gavora - former speechwriter to Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft and Roberto Gonzalez - slammed Title IX as "affirmative androgyny" (as if that would be a bad thing). Anne Coulter - right-wing über-troll and self-confessed fan of Joe McCarthy - described Title IX as "the ultimate totalitarian folly", "crazed feminist social engineering" and an "insane feminist dream ... to change nature".

[]

[t]he heart of all the arguments against Title IX [is] the somewhat Victorian notion that sport is strictly for people with penises. Thirty-five years on, the really amazing thing about Title IX is that it's still going strong. Still forcing schools and colleges not to fob female athletes off with second-rate equipment and facilities. Still inspiring girls to do something more than just wave pom-poms on the sidelines. Still changing the world one pony-tailed midfielder at a time.

Happy birthday, Title IX.

Like the right-wing fruitcakes who oppose having cheerleaders cheer for both boys and girls games. Why is that controversial?

Winnie Hu (I kid you not), NYTimes: Equal Cheers for Boys and Girls Draw Some Boos

First Round: Anucha Browne Sanders 1, Knicks/Isiah Thomas 0

The EEOC, the federal administrative agency that enforces employment law, has found "probable cause" to believe Anucha Browne Sanders was sexually harassed by Isiah Thomas, and that the New York Knicks retaliated against her by firing her when she complained.

Under Title VII, the federal employment law, and under New York State law, a plaintiff is required to present her claims at the agency level first prior to going to court. Because of the very short time limits to file employment cases, her case is also filed in federal court, and according to these articles settlement discussions have been initiated there.

The probable cause finding by the EEOC is admissible in court, but that doesn't mean that the case is over, or that Sanders will necessarily win at trial. At trial it is just another piece of evidence in her favor.

This is the result I expected, as Browne Sanders is a respected professional with years of accomplishments on her resume, and she has one of the best plaintiff's employment law firms in New York City representing her. They wouldn't have taken her claim if it wasn't a winner. However, the EEOC doesn't always get it right; the agency has been under attack from within for years, as the Bush Administration has choked off funds and prefers the agency to bring cases for whites claiming reverse discrimination. So it is a victory for her to get this ruling.

It will be interesting to see if the Knicks continue to take this hard stand, or if they face reality and put some real money on the table. They can take this to trial, but they'll lose. Isiah Thomas hasn't had a winner since he left the court for the Detroit Pistons. He destroyed the CBA, tried to destroy the Indiana Pacers (he was interrupted from the mission when GM Larry Bird fired his ass), and is in the process of destroying the New York Knicks. You've got to have a big ego to fire Larry Brown.

NYTimes: [EEOC] Report Supports Claims in Suit Against Thomas

The commission’s investigation supported Browne Sanders’s contention that she had been a victim of more than one incident of harassment and that “she was subjected to a hostile work environment including, but not limited to, severe and pervasive verbal sexual harassment.”

The determination, by Spencer H. Lewis Jr., the district director of the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]’s New York office, said the Garden had failed to take “reasonable care to prevent or correct discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”

Lewis made his determination last Friday, and it was released yesterday. His two-page letter did not describe the scope of the commission’s investigation or name witnesses.

Lewis found that the commission’s inquiry supported Browne Sanders’s contention that the Garden had fired her in retaliation for reporting her claims to her supervisors. Lewis also wrote that there was probable cause to believe the Garden violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Garden, but not Thomas, was the subject named in the commission’s investigation.

NYDaily News: Ruling supports accuser's suit

Newsday: Point for MSG accuser
Agency affirms executive's claim she was harassed, fired for complaining and clears way for settlement talks

SI: Mess at MSG
EEOC: Evidence supports Knicks exec's claims

It's Football, Stupid, Not Title IX

John Tierney gets it wrong, as usual.

John Tierney, NYTimes: Let the Guys Win One (TimesSelect wall)

His thesis:

When Title IX was enacted in 1972, women were a minority on college campuses, and it sounded reasonable to fight any discrimination against them. But now men are the underachieving minority on campus, as a series by The Times has been documenting. So why is it so important to cling to the myth behind Title IX: that women need sports as much as men do?

Yes, some women are dedicated athletes, and they should be encouraged with every opportunity. But a lot of others have better things to do, like study or work on other extracurricular activities that will be more useful to their careers. For decades, athletic directors have been creating women’s sports teams and dangling scholarships and hoping to match the men’s numbers, but they’ve learned that not even the Department of Education can eradicate gender differences.

At the University of Maryland, the women’s lacrosse team won national championships year after year but still had a hard time getting 40 players to turn out for the team. The men’s team had no such trouble, because guys were more than willing to warm the bench even if they weren’t getting a scholarship, but the coach had to cut the extra ones to maintain the gender balance. The school satisfied Title IX, but to no one’s benefit.

On or off campus, men play more team sports and watch more team sports.

The facts:

The foundation of Title IX is not the 'myth' that women need sports as much as men do. Title IX is an amendment to a federal education bill; its central thesis is that women, who pay the same tuition and taxes as men, should receive the same opportunities to participate in sports programs. It only applies to institutions that choose to receive federal funds. Any private school that doesn't want to treat men and women equally in sports can do so: just forgo federal funds. It's called equality, John Tierney, as much as you disdain it. Or maybe you're just an originalist, believing "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal..." really only applies to men.

The vast majority of colleges and universities are not in compliance with Title IX; they spend more money on their smaller percentage of male undergraduates than they do on their larger percentage of female undergraduates.

Title IX has never been enforced by the federal government. No university has ever lost federal funds for Title IX violations.

So what's the real problem here? Why are administrators creating teams that women aren't interested in? It's a two-fold problem, and it all comes back to football.

Football is the Achilles heel of college sports programs. It is the ultimate sacred cow. Colleges routinely carry football squads at the Division I-A limit of 85 players. (The maximum number of players who can actually suit up for a game is 40.) A large proportion of most college sports programs funding goes to football. So, colleges need to balance out football.

I am unaware of any school that actually spends its athletic funds equally on men and women. That would be the simple way to comply with Title IX. But that ain't gonna happen, not while the most athletic directors are male and most college leadership is male. So how else can a school comply? The government still relies on guidelines passed over 30 years ago to give colleges ways to comply with Title IX without actually providing equal money or opportunities. (Or as we say here in the reality-based community, ways to get around the law.) The so-called 'three-prong' test gives schools three ways to comply: (1) TRY; {a good-faith effort to accommodate women's interests), (2) SUCCESSFUL TRY (show that women's interests are completely accommodated, even if you're not equal), and (3) CLOSE ENOUGH FOR THE OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS, (proportionality, that your playing opportunities for men and women are roughly proportional to their numbers in the student body).

Well, it's a little late for the first two prongs to be relevant (how can you show a history when you've been out of compliance for 30 years?) so most schools try to show proportionality.

So schools are trying to balance out those 85 football spots. There may be a million guys out there who want to wrestle, or play lacrosse, or cycle. But schools prefer to give men scholarships to back up the football bench rather than reduce football squads.

Therefore, schools need to create women's sports to make their numbers proportional. But because schools spend so much of their sports money on football, schools want to push cheap women's sports. That's why schools all over the country have cut their very popular women's gymnastics programs. Expensive, between the equipment and the insurance. Instead, they've added sports teams that are big and require little equipment. Wonder why crew and rowing are all over US college campuses? Colleges report squads of 70, 80, 90 female crew members. They count 'em the day they sign up, not after a month or two when most of the novices (there aren't many crew or rowing programs in high schools) drop out. There was no nationwide cry for rowing by female athletes. Lacrosse, also a big new women's sport, not because women are that interested in it, but because you can report a squad of 40 easily. Women who want to play sports that have smaller squads have been rebuffed. See Mansourian v. UC Davis, a female wrestler who was denied the opportunity to participate, as an example. Mansourian's male coach was fired from UC Davis for supporting her; his case has just been allowed to go to trial.

The real problem is the way college athletic programs have decided to allocate money and participation opportunities. Women's sports haven't caused smaller men's sports to lose spots. It's the insistence that football programs have 85 athletes, although many of those 'athletes' will never set foot on the field as college athletes.

Don't blame women for dumb allocation of athletic dollars. Blame the administrators. Blame football and its bloated squads. Don't blame women, John Tierney.


Mariah Burton Nelson deconstructed this same bogus argument four years ago: And Now They Tell Us Women Don’t Really Like Sports?

And no article on Title IX should ever be written without a big thank you Patsy Mink, foremother behind Title IX (along with Birch Bayh), who fought for equality. Great article by Mechelle Voepel.

Dr. Haddad Resigns With More Than $800,000 Severance Package

Dr. Perv and his enabler
Gee, I'm filled with pity, he gets 10 months of his over $1,000,000 annual compensation as he slinks out the door.

WaPo: Mass. Roman Catholic Hospital Chief Quits

Boston Globe: Chief of Caritas forced out
Haddad quits after board votes for firing

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley and the leadership of the region's Catholic health care system early this morning forced the resignation of the hospitals' president, Dr. Robert M. Haddad, over allegations that he had sexually harassed several women.
Article Tools

At around 1:30 a.m., after a five-hour meeting of the hospital's board of governors, the archdiocese said that Haddad had resigned from the positions of president and chief executive of Caritas Christi Health Care System.

The archdiocese said that the hospital's board had voted to fire Haddad but offered him ten month's of salary and benefits if he resigned instead. His compensation is believed to be worth more than $1 million a year.

The Globe offers a weaselly article in the Business section claiming sexual harassment is filled with ambiguity. They quote several employment lawyers, all of whom are defense lawyers. This is the equivalent of writing an article on environmental laws while quoting the attorneys for Dupont, Dow Chemical and Halliburton.

This article on the ambiguity of sexual harassing behavior is written as the sidebar to a case in which a man is accused of sexually harassing at least 14 women and perhaps more. The harassment consisted of offensive and unwanted touching including hugging, rubbing them on the back, and kissing on the lips (ewwww); sexual innuendoes, calling them at home late at night, and asking them about their sex lives. There's nothing ambiguous about Haddad's behavior. That's why the attorneys who investigated the case for the Diocese, Drinan and Musiker (the former head the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination) believed he should have been fired when they knew about 4 complaining women. Now there are 14+. A completely unambiguous story. Gray areas, my ass.

Gray areas complicate sexual harassment cases

I prefer the Herald's take:

Margery Eagen, Boston Herald: Church still coddles creeps (subscription wall)

Now for the archdiocese’s latest cross to bear: the alleged winking, leering, back-rubbing, body hugging and mouth kissing workplace sexual harasser, Dr. Robert Haddad, the million-dollar man who has run the Catholic Caritas Christi Health Care system.

Will these deviants never go away?

Previous posts: Dr. Haddad Getting The Hook (May 24, 2006)

The Catholic Church Never Learns (May 23, 2006)

Rene The Weenie in USA Today

This time, Rene picked on the wrong kid. Harris parents' support her.
More support for Jen Harris's discrimination complaint against Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland, from today's USA Today:

Others make allegations against Penn State's Portland

New evidence that Portland discriminates against lesbians, from former player Christine Gulas (1981-1982); Chris Demuth, student trainer for 1996-97 season; and Amber Bland, who was kicked off the team the same night as Jen Harris.

Harris stands tall in painful battle with Penn State coach

And, of course, the Weenie's side of the story: Portland vigorously defends her integrity and Penn State program


Previous posts: Rene is a Weenie (March 26, 2006)

Just Keep Sending Her to Diversity Training; It Worked So Well Before (April 19, 2006)

The lawsuit is taking a physical and mental toll on Harris. "I'm on sleeping pills and anti-depressants now because I've gone through such a long period of depression that it was starting to worry people," she says. Adds her father: "I haven't heard Jennifer laugh in a year."

Just Keep Sending Her to Diversity Training; It Worked So Well Before

Penn State finds Rene Portland ('Rene the Weenie') discriminated against Jen Harris on perceived sexual oriention grounds, but lets her off, again:

Women's Hoops Blog (1)

[H]ere is the University press release. It is, as rumored, a slap on the wrist.

PSU's internal investigation found that Coach Portland did indeed violate the school's antidiscrimination policy.

The report ... conclude[d] that enough evidence existed to substantiate a claim that Portland discriminated against Harris by creating a “hostile, intimidating, and offensive environment” because of Harris' sexual orientation. This is in violation of Penn State Policy AD-42, which prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, sexual orientation, and other personal characteristics.

But the sanctions ordered are mild. Very mild. They include:

(1) A letter of reprimand (strongly worded, I'm sure).
(2) A warning that future violations will not be tolerated (and this time we really, really mean it).
(3) Diversity training (insert rolling-eyes emoticon here).
(4) A $10,000 fine.

Women's Hoops Blog (2)

But are these sanctions meaningful? NCLR's Karen Doering scoffs at the notion of putting Rene Portland through more diversity training.

"She underwent diversity training in 1991 with no effect," Doering said. "Her very statement of denials today clearly shows she does not get it. If she doesn't think she has done anything wrong, she's not going to change her behavior."

Walt Moody, Knight Ridder (San Jose Mercury-News): Sanctions against Penn State's Portland have no real bite

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The line has been drawn in the sand by Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland and university president Graham Spanier is standing on the other side.

"I will return as head coach of the Lady Lions next year," she said Tuesday during a hastily called news conference to dispute university findings that she violated the school's anti-discrimination policy in dealings with former player Jennifer Harris, who has filed a federal lawsuit against Portland and the school.

The university report, which spawned from Harris' charges that she was discriminated against because of perceived sexual orientation and race, concluded that created a "hostile, intimidating and offensive environment" based on Harris' perceived sexual orientation. The report said there was no basis for the race claims of Harris, who is black.

By accepting the findings of the report, Spanier agreed that "the preponderance of evidence supported a conclusion that discrimination had taken place" against Harris, who claims she is not gay, but was perceived to be so by Portland.

Spanier ordered four actions to be taken against Portland among other recommendations for the school's athletic department.

Portland could have accepted to what amounts to a colossal slap on the wrist and gone on with her coaching career. The sanctions have no real bite.

A written letter in a personnel file for a coach who isn't going anywhere else is no big deal. Neither is attending a "professional development experience devoted to diversity and inclusiveness," where the only penalty is time spent.

The hard-hitters are supposed to be a $10,000 fine (for a coach who last year signed a four-year deal that pays six figures) and the promise she will be dismissed if she violates the anti-discrimination policy again.

They're hardly hard-hitting.

Given Portland's history - published comments in the early 1990s about not wanting lesbians in her program - the punishment had the potential to be harsher.

Mechelle Voepel, ESPN: Step in right direction, but so much further to go

Previous post: Rene is a Weenie (March 26, 2006)

Rene is a Weenie

Rene Portland, the head coach of Penn State's women's basketball team, has been openly discriminating against lesbian players for years. Coach Mom & Dad & I were at the Women's Final Four in New Orleans in 1991 when she was given the National Division I Coach of the Year Award. We sat on our hands when the award was announced. We were too polite to boo, but Coach Mom did mutter "Discriminator!" loudly when she stepped to the podium.

Massachusetts has big billboards on the highways as you enter the state warning about our gun laws (at least we used to -- has our series of Rethug governors had them taken down?) I wish we had big billboards warning people like Rene Weenie Portland that Massachusetts doesn't tolerate discriminators and haters. Get out of town, and take your medieval attitudes with you, Rene Weenie.

Boston Globe: When the fouls get very personal
Player's suit claims Penn State coach was biased against lesbians

By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff | March 26, 2006

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- They echo through the years, voices from a generation of female basketball players who say their lives were marred by a powerful college coach's campaign against homosexuality.

Their legacy of pain began in 1982, when, Cindy Davies says, Penn State coach Maureen T. ''Rene" Portland threatened to expose her as a lesbian. The legacy endured as Portland in 1986 publicly espoused her opposition to coaching homosexuals and reaffirmed her stance in 1991, all the while allegedly engaging in a pattern of bias based on sexual orientation. And the legacy grows as Jennifer Harris pursues a federal discrimination claim that Portland cut her from the Penn State team last year in part because the coach considered her a lesbian.

As the women's basketball community converges on Boston this week for the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament, the Portland case looms as a watershed chapter in a decades-long struggle to eradicate prejudice that has long festered in the sport against homosexual players and coaches. Numerous athletes and coaches said in interviews that nearly every facet of women's college basketball, from recruiting to hiring practices, has been affected by discrimination based on sexual orientation.

''This lawsuit is the most significant thing that has happened in trying to address homophobia in the sport to date," said Pat Griffin, a professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts whose educational program aimed at curbing bias against homosexuals has been distributed by the NCAA to every member school. ''It's a cautionary tale for coaches and athletic directors that they cannot discriminate with impunity anymore."

While the NCAA prepares a survey on the impact of homophobia in the sport and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association plans at its national convention in Boston this week to adopt a code of ethics that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, Harris, 21, is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a number of institutional reforms in her 20-count civil rights suit against Portland, Penn State athletic director Timothy Curley, and the school. The list of proposed reforms includes annual mandatory anti-discrimination training for Penn State's athletic staff.

[]

Confrontational coach
In Portland's case, the timeline of her campaign against homosexuality dates to 1982, her second full year at Penn State (she was hired by the school's legendary football coach, Joe Paterno, who then doubled as athletic director). Suspicious that Davies, one of her prized players, was romantically involved with the team's female student manager, Portland dismissed the manager and confronted Davies, the former player said in a telephone interview.

''It's seared in my mind to this day," Davies, 43, said of the confrontation. ''[Portland] said, 'I don't know if it's true, but if I find out it's true, there's nothing that will stop me from going to your parents, the university, and the media.' "

Davies said she ''felt like I was being blackmailed" but lacked the support she would have needed as a 19-year-old to challenge Portland.

''I was scared to death," she said. ''I felt like I was cornered. I ended up saying I would leave the program to concentrate on my academics."

After leaving Penn State, Davies said, she entered a lengthy period of depression in which she contemplated suicide.

Because We Don't Look Like Them

New York Times: Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?

Duh. Big law firms are partnerships, and those partnerships are almost all male. They hire people they feel comfortable with: people like themselves. And men aren't out there looking for self-knowledge. If you don't hit them over the head with their passive discriminatory ways, they don't see it.

I was the only woman lawyer in my 10-lawyer law firm for five long years. I got along with all my fellow attorneys, and half or more of them would say they were my friends. But they excluded me in many ways, large and small. From their jovial calls to start attorney meetings 'OK, boys, what's on the agenda today'; to not inviting me out to lunch, or to golf, or for drinks; to paying me less and telling me my pay was the same. I was different, and alone, and I was always aware of that, even if they weren't.

I had my revenge. I took a pro bono sex discrimination case, settled it, and got local and national press. Before my afternoon of press conferences and photographers and interviews, I went in to my managing partner's office, ostensibly to go over my talking points for the day. [Democrats take note: The message is the message.] But I had a personal agenda.

After going through my press points, I said, I have just one question I don't know how to answer. When a journalist asks me, 'If you're a discrimination lawyer, why are you the only female lawyer in your law firm?', what do I say?

There was a very long silence. His face reddened, alarmingly. He sputtered, and came back at my very angrily. They didn't discriminate. There was no intent. That was ridiculous.

I didn't go into my litany of complaints. I just said, I don't think a really good journalist will be satisfied with that answer. And I left, because the Boston Globe was in the reception area, and I had a busy afternoon ahead of me.

The next day the managing partner came in, said he thought about it the night before, accepted my complaint, and asked me how things should change.

Things changed, and I did eventually make partner.

I was lucky, and unusual. Established law firms are not hospitable environments for women lawyers.

Color Me Not Surprised

Sexual Harassment Suit Filed Against Thomas and Garden

A former high-level Knicks executive filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing Isiah Thomas, the team's president, of sexual harassment and discrimination, saying he had made unwanted advances, cursed her and barred players from working with her on community events.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, the executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, said that Thomas refused to stop his actions despite her protests and discomfort, and that her immediate supervisor, Steve Mills, the president of Madison Square Garden Sports, did nothing to intercede on her behalf.

Why the defendants *should* settle:

1. Sanders has got a great lawyer, one of the top employment discrimination lawyers in New York: Judith Vladeck. I can hear her cigarette-scarred voice now. She wouldn't have taken this case without thoroughly evaluating it first. They've got something here.

2. Sanders has been with the Knicks since 2000, so she has three years worth of good performance evaluations on her side.

3. She's been in the workplace for over 20 years and her previous employer was IBM. This was an executive position with the Knicks, and knowing the NBA and its teams, there weren't too many women this high in an organization. She's no figurehead.

4. Isiah is socially personable, but not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Remember him saying that Larry Bird would be just another player if he were black?

Another take: Isiah Thomas Handles Women As Well As He Handles ... Well, Everything Else

Actually, she’s not just an “employee;” she’s Anucha Browne Sanders, the former vice president of marketing whose bio is still up on the Knicks’ Web site. She’s hardly some opportunistic floozy; she’s a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year at Northwestern, she made Sports Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list in 2003 and before coming to the Knicks, she did IBM marketing efforts for 11 years, including spearheading their Atlanta 1996 campaign. She also is married and has three children.

Sanders bio from nba.com:

Anucha Browne Sanders

Senior Vice President, Marketing and Business Operations
New York Knickerbockers

Knicks Senior Vice President, Marketing and Business Operations Anucha Browne Sanders was elevated to her current position in the spring of 2002 after joining the organization as Vice President of Marketing on Nov. 20, 2000.

The Brooklyn, New York native is responsible for the day-to-day management of the business side of the Knicks front office and serves as the team’s chief marketing officer. She oversees all of the club’s business activities and revenue streams, including partnerships, ticketing, fan development, field marketing, event presentation, community relations, special events and new media. She also works closely with MSG’s other sports properties - the New York Rangers and New York Liberty - in finding new and innovative ways to integrate the three very distinct and highly successful brands and is the primary liaison between the team and the NBA. Her professional success has not gone unnoticed, as she was named to the Sports Business Journal’s “Forty Under Forty” list in 2003, honoring the top 40 professionals in the sports field under 40 years old. She was also honored for her work (along with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton), by Greater New York Links, Inc. an organization comprised of 11,000 African-American women nationwide, and has been a featured speaker at numerous sports marketing conferences and seminars ranging from the Harvard Business School to the Active 2002 Sport and Recreation Industry Conference in western Australia. Most recently, Anucha was honored with the 2004 Miracle Award by The Miracle Makers, a not-for-profit family and children’s services group in New York.

Prior to joining the Knicks, Anucha spent 11 years with IBM Corporation, serving in a number of roles, most recently as a Program Manager in IBM’s Worldwide Sports Office. In that capacity, she was responsible for a number of IBM’s marketing efforts during the Olympic Games (Atlanta 1996, Nagano 1998 and Sydney 2000), including corporate sponsorship efforts that allowed IBM to leverage their investment as a Worldwide Olympic sponsor.

The Northwestern University graduate was no stranger to success on the hardwood. She was a three-time All Big Ten selection and two-time Big Ten Player of the Year for the Wildcats, finishing her career as the all-time leading scorer in Big Ten women’s basketball history, as well as the school’s all-time leader in points (2,307) and rebounds (951). The two-time Wade Trophy nominee and 1985 Kodak All-American also led the nation in scoring with a school record 31.5 ppg in 1984-85. She was also selected to play on the U.S. National Team that toured Europe and Asia following her graduation. Her long list of athletic honors includes being selected Northwestern’s Athlete of the Decade for the ‘80’s and being inducted to the Wildcats Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. She was also honored by the Empire State Games as one of it’s top athlete’s of the first 25 years the competition has been in existence, in the summer of 2002.

Among her numerous philanthropic activities, Anucha serves on the board of Children’s Village, a private, New York State, not-for-profit corporation that provides aid, comfort and hope to over 80,000 children. She also traveled to Southern Asia this past summer to assist the victims of the tsunami with their recovery and rebuilding efforts as part of a trip organized by Phillips Exeter Academy. Anucha holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Communications from Northwestern, and a Masters degree in Marketing Communications from Florida State University. She resides with her husband Roy and their three children in New Jersey.

Scalito Skating Onto SCOTUS

I keep meaning to mention this. Why don't the Senators on the Judiciary Committee use their staff to ask questions?

None of them could cross examine themselves out of a paper bag. They're lucky to get a question or two in during their long, bloviating soliloquies.

Now, you don't have to be a brain surgeon to examine a witness. But there are certain, simple rules.

Like, don't start out by saying "Just a few questions", when you're going to be up there for an hour.

Or don't trivialize your questions before you ask them by making only-funny-to-you self-deprecating statements (like this: BIDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand, Judge, I'm the only one standing between you and lunch, so I'll try to make this painless.)

This applies to all the Senators, not just Joe Biden (D-MBNA). But Biden was certainly the worst offender. Here's another little Biden gem:

[] But again, this is just by way of why some of us are puzzled. Because if I was aware of it, and I didn't even like Princeton...

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, I really didn't like Princeton. I was an Irish Catholic kid who thought it had not changed like you concluded it had.

I admit, one of my real dilemmas is I have two kids who went to Ivy League schools. I'm not sure my Grandfather Finnegan will ever forgive me for allowing that to happen.

But all kidding aside, I wasn't a big Princeton fan. And so maybe that is why I focused on it and no one else did. But I remember it at the time.

If you want your audience to take you seriously, be serious. Don't make stupid jokes. Is this a serious proceeding or not? Does a doctor make jokes in the middle of informing you about the medical condition of a loved one? Of course not. That would be inappropriate to the occasion. Biden's inability to stay on topic was incredibly annoying.

Also incredibly annoying, his/their habit of stating glowing conclusions about Alito's opinions and motives BEFORE asking questions in those very areas. Like this:

BIDEN: I don't think anybody thinks you are a man lacking in integrity. I don't think anybody thinks that you are a person who's not independent.

[]

So again, I'm not questioning your commitment to civil rights. What I do wonder about is, whether or not -- it's presumptuous of me to say this -- whether you fully appreciate how discrimination does work today.

Why bother questioning someone about their opinions on discrimination when you preface it like this:

I know you want to eliminate discrimination. Explain to me how that test is distinguishable from just plain old discrimination.

Well, why are we bothering to have these hearings if we "know" Scalito wants to eliminate discrimination? Isn't the reason we're here is that most of us Democrats believe, since he almost always rules against discrimination victims, that he's against the very concept of anti-discrimination law? As an employment lawyer, that's one of the reasons I don't want this jamoke on the Court. He's got his finger on the scale on the side of the employer.

Bring back the questioning by staff. Where is our Sam Dash, our Arthur Liman?

Tomorrow I'm calling my Senators and asking them to filibuster. Call yours.

Clean Sweep

Democrats and right-thinkers won almost everything yesterday.

Jon Corzine (D) is the new governor of New Jersey, by a "surprisingly large margin" of 9 points.

Tim Kaine (D) is the new governor of Virginia, 52-46.

The Democratic mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, who endorsed Bush in 2004? He lost to a real Democrat, Chris Coleman, 69-31.

Ah-hold's initiatives were soundly defeated in California. Every one of them.

The christ-o-fascists on the Dover, Pennsylvania school board who added intelligent design to the science curriculum? Replaced by 8 Democrats. Every incumbent lost. (Scientific American chortles, "It's Over in Dover")

Maine rejected a referendum that would have repealed the state's new anti-gay discrimination law.

Only in Tex-ass did a Republican-supported, anti-gay amendment win. And who cares about Tex-ass? Future retirement home of the disgraced, hopefully impeached Bush the Dumber.