Rene Portland was the women’s head coach for Penn State basketball for twenty seven seasons, and for those twenty seven seasons she had no problem with stating her rule of no lesbians on her team. She ruined many female athletes careers because of this rule, it did not matter if these women were actually lesbian or if she just thought they were. It was not until Jennifer Harris accused Rene Portland of removing her from the team because of her sexual orientation that she was given a small amount of punishment. She was only fined 10,000 dollars and was required to attend diversity training sessions, and placed a zero tolerance policy for future violations. Ultimately just a slap on the wrist.
My question is, why did this continue on for so long? How much sooner would this have been dealt with if this was an issue based on racism? I doubt twenty seven years. If she said that she wanted no African Americans on her team this issue would have been stopped immediately, and she would have been fired. This just goes to show how certain issues in our society are more important than others. How long is it going to take until our society starts accepting people the way they are? Discriminating based on sexual orientation should be just as big of a deal as racism. No one should have to go through what Rene Portland did to these young female athletes. She ruined their careers and diminish their hopes and dreams, and its wrong.
Christine Thiebert
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