One of the hot issues concerning gay and lesbian teachers is whether they should be coaches of boys’ and girls’ sports teams. In some school districts, parents complain that gays and lesbians cannot coach teams, or even P.E. for that matter.

They complain GLBT coaches are bad role models, and, of course, school districts cannot trust GLBT coaches with students in locker rooms and on overnight trips.

It still comes as a shock for these folks to learn that lesbians have been teaching girls’ P.E. and coaching girls and women’s sports teams for years. And gay men have coached boys and girls’ teams.

A related controversy is the continuing issue of women coaching boys’ sports and men coaching women’s sports. Some argue that both gender and sexual orientation should be factors in determining coaches.

Anti-bias laws generally include an exemption for “bona fide qualification” based upon gender or sexual orientation.

For example, producers don’t have to cast a male to perform the role of an actress, or to cast an African American to play the role of a white racist.

Generally, the courts have only allowed gender for jobs like prison guards or with regard to businesses that feature sex titillation.

Federal law established long ago that schools may not generally use gender as a bona fide qualification for the hiring of staff.

The same standard should apply to sexual orientation. Federal law does not specifically prohibit GLBT bias. But recent cases have held that gay bias is a form of gender bias. This is because those who harbor prejudice against gays do so because GLBTs fail to conform to gender stereotypes.

Even though schools and colleges cannot consider gender in hiring matters, they obviously do. There are only a handful of women serving as athletic directors for college programs, and not many more in high school posts. While men get jobs coaching women’s sports, there are few women coaching men’s sports.

Okay, part of the problem is that women (girls) are virtually uninvolved in football and wrestling. But basketball is another story.

And a recent case from Michigan should provide help for women who seek jobs coaching men’s teams.

Geraldine Fuhr was a teacher at Hazel Park High School, located in Hazel Park, Mich. She coached the boys’ junior varsity basketball team and served as assistant coach for the boys’ varsity basketball for eight years. She served as head coach of the girls’ basketball team for 10 years.

Based upon her experience, she would have seemed the likely choice to take over as coach of the varsity basketball team.

In fact, when the post opened up, Fuhr was the choice of the school’s retiring basketball coach and the school’s athletic director. However, school district officials wouldn’t let them serve on the hiring committee. Instead, five other male administrators from the high school and school district selected the new coach.

The hiring committee selected a male teacher at the school who had coached the boys’ freshman basketball team for two years.

Now, in virtually every case involving bias, the hiring committee never comes out and tells the victim of bias, “We don’t want a woman!” Nobody is that stupid. So they have a pretextual reason for the move. “You were late to class one day five years ago.”

Here, the committee argued that if it selected her, Fuhr would have had to coach both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams. She was willing to do this.

They also argued that there is no difference between coaching boys and girls’ varsity teams.

In theory, that should be true. In 2004, the University of Connecticut won both the men and women’s varsity basketball titles. The titles are equal in name only. Jim Calhoun, UConn’s coach, gets paid substantially more than his counterpart in the women’s division. Women’s basketball, though gaining in popularity, is merely a speck in the shadow of men’s basketball.

So, arguably, a coach, male or female, would want to coach a boys’ team, if the boys’ team was better. Here, Fuhr showed that she would have received more money had she coached the boys’ team.

Fuhr sued the school district for gender bias under federal law. At her trial, members of the hiring committee testified that the superintendent told them that school board members did not want a woman as head coach and that he would comply with their request.

A jury awarded Fuhr close to $500,000 in damages and the judge ordered the district to name Fuhr as the head basketball coach.

On appeal, the district argued that its reasons for not hiring Fuhr had nothing to do with her gender. It argued that she didn’t suffer any injury because coaching the boys’ team was comparable to coaching the girls’ team. It was a lateral move. But the court noted that boys’ coaching job paid more. That was enough.

Secondly, the district argued that it could not have had Fuhr coach two varsity teams.

Once an employer presents a defense for an action, then the employee, here, Fuhr, had to prove that the reason was false and merely a pretext for discrimination based upon gender.

Based upon testimony from the hiring committee, the school board president and the school principal, the jury found the reason for not hiring was clearly a pretext for its real motive: it didn’t want a female head coach.

Homophobia and gender bias still dominate sports. The Fuhr case is a reminder to school boards not to engage in bias.