A Coach Fights for Equality

'Landmark, Get Set ... Go!': Basketball Coach Recounts Supreme Court Case for Equal Treatment of Girls' Team in New Book


BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Nov. 9, 2007 -- "Girls who think they are being treated wrong shouldn't just sit and wait for something to happen," Roderick Jackson writes. "Don't just stop because people say nothing can be done. Eventually, someone will listen to you." In "Landmark, Get Set ... Go!: A Coach Fights for Equality" (published by AuthorHouse - http://www.authorhouse.com), Jackson gives a true and up-close account of his experiences as an embattled coach enduring a lengthy legal struggle to ensure equal treatment for his girls' basketball team. This book depicts the highs and lows of the Title IX case, which eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson's story begins in Birmingham, Ala., a city known as a hotbed of civil rights debate and social change. From 1999 until May 2001, he coached the girls' basketball team at Ensley High School. After standing up for his team, which was being denied the same rights as the boys' team, he was fired. Jackson explains the danger of penalizing adults who are looking out for the best interests of their students:
If coaches, teachers or other adults in the schools can be penalized for speaking up, the effect will be chilling. We are the ones - sometime the only ones - who know when inequities occur. If we remain silent we'll send students the message that they ought to think twice before standing up for themselves. If that happens, our schools won't acknowledge, much less correct, discrimination.
For years Jackson faced considerable opposition from a powerful school board and others, losing at every level in the courts. Eventually, with the help of the National Women's Law Center and O'Melveny & Myers, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme court in 2003. In March 2005, he won a landmark decision in an exemplary case that raised awareness about continued gender discrimination across the country.

His case has been covered by national media such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, CNN, Tavis Smiley, The Associated Press, USA Today, ESPN and The Washington Post.

Roderick Jackson has been a teacher, coach and public speaker for the past 20 years. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama-Birmingham and a master's degree in education from Alabama State University. He lives in Birmingham with his wife, Joni, and his children, LaBritney and Nicholas. Jackson continues to strive to improve conditions for girls throughout the Birmingham metropolitan region, and part of the proceeds from this book will be donated to girls' basketball programs in west Birmingham. (ERN)