The thing about diversity is that the first person to create it in a workplace is usually the standard-bearer for how people react to it. Ted Bahhur, who was dismissed as Clark-Atlanta University’s head football coach earlier this week, is now planning a lawsuit based a lot on reactions from the university’s administration.
Bahhur said that he could cite several examples of racial discrimination. He said that he was asked questions in meetings and embarrassed by Brown and Jones in ways that other coaches who are black were not.
At a preseason rally for the team in August, Bahhur said that Jones told the audience he was going into his sixth season before asking the coach if that was correct. Bahhur replied that this was actually his fifth season.
According to Bahhur, Jones replied, “Well, yeah, I wouldn’t bring you back for a sixth season.”
It’s just hearsay at this point, but if a white adminstrator made this kind of comment at a predominantly white school, we’d have the same kind of beef, and a legitimate claim on our hands.
This is going to be interesting because the university can claim Bahhur was not good at his job; they can simply pull out the 20-29 record he posted. Conversely, Bahhur can cite the Panthers’ 4-29 record prior to his arrival. On both sides of the story, both Bahhur and CAU have a right to their claims.
Down the line, I expect Tamica Jones, athletic director for CAU, to be gone. Even if there is no merit to a potential claim from Bahhur, Jones is the person most responsible for providing him the ammunition as his direct boss. And she is the one most responsible for protecting him from any kind of mistreatment. When it comes to race, jokes and people’s jobs, you can’t mess around.
Based on the record alone, I would fully support Bahhur being fired as head coach. But if Jones and CAU president Carlton Brown created an environment that became hostile for Bahhur to do his job, he fully deserves his job back, restitution, and the satisfaction of seeing the guilty parties fired and held accountable.
I hope this isn’t true, particularly from a people who know what the experience is like and for too long, had no legal recourse to solve the issue.
