Former Univ. of Minnesota golf coach to sue for anti-gay discrimination

January 11 -- Former University of Minnesota golf coach Katie Brenny will sue her former employer and director of golf John Harris for discriminating against her because she is gay.

As Waggle Room wrote last month, the lawsuit will come as no surprise. Brenny, who is openly gay, resigned after only two months as associate women’s head coach due to “a hostile work environment, discrimination, retaliation and harassment, and discrimination concerning sexual preference,” attorney Donald Mark Jr. told Waggle Room in December.

In her complaint, which Mark told Waggle Room he will file Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court, Brenny alleges that Harris and the university provided an intolerable work environment and forced her to quit her as associate head coach of the women’s golf team after learning she was a lesbian.

Brenny said the university never told her why she received such “hostile” treatment, learning later the discrimination was based on her gender and sexual orientation.

“Almost as soon as I arrived in Minnesota, I was not permitted to carry out the duties of the position, and I was denied the opportunity to coach the team,” Brenny said in a statement Mark provided Waggle Room on Tuesday. “This included my not being permitted to travel with the team to the four tournaments scheduled for the fall. The atmosphere that was created became more and more hostile, to the point where it made it intolerable for me to even perform the limited administrative duties that had been reassigned to me.”

University officials, whom Mark served with the complaint Tuesday, have denied any wrongdoing and hoped to avoid legal action.

“We have an understanding of what happened here based on internal discussions and a review of the matter and we don’t believe that the university engaged in any improprieties or unlawful activities,” the school’s general counsel Mark Rotenberg said in a phone interview last month.

Rotenberg did not respond Tuesday to a request for further comment.

As several sources with close knowledge of the golf program told the school newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, Brenny arrived to find the job she had accepted different from the one assigned to her. She ended up performing administrative tasks while Harris’s son-in-law coached the team

Why Harris hired Brenny in the first place remained hazy, but her lawyer believed the facts were crystal clear. “She was discriminated against at least in part because of her sexual preference,” Mark said previously.

Brenny, the 1998 Minnesota State High School champ, LPGA Futures Tour and Women’s Canadian Tour golfer, returned to the state from a job as assistant club pro at Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst, N.C., with much fanfare. She exited under far different circumstances.

If the university had “fairly compensated” Brenny, she would not have sought legal relief, said Marks. “This was a very disruptive situation for her. The right thing is to compensate Katie not only for her lost income but for the humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress, and difficulty in getting another job after what was done to her.”

Apparently, a settlement was not possible, and Brenny will take the school to court. In her complaint, she will say that Harris barred her from fulfilling “the role of associate head coach of the women’s golf team.” Such duties included instructing players, recruiting players from on- an off-campus, and traveling with the team to tournaments.

In addition to delegating Brenny to clerical work while her counterpart for the men’s golf team carried out his described job, Harris would not let her meet with the team, limited her contact with team members, and prohibited her from providing instruction, according to the complaint.

In barring Brenny from communicating with team members, Harris reportedly told the plaintiff, “You have nothing to talk to these girls about,” the lawsuit will charge. Harris also told her to stay away from seniors and talk with freshman about “boys, life and school,” read the complaint.

Additional humiliations and threats to accept a new, non-golf-related job or quit amounted to acts that were “deliberate and intentional and committed with malice, reckless disregard, or deliberate disregard for [Brenny’s] rights,” according to her suit.

Brenny will sue under the state’s Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination based on someone’s sex and/or sexual orientation and will seek damages for “loss of income, mental anguish, emotional distress, loss of reputation, and other pain and suffering” exceeding $50,000.