The National Center for Lesbian Rights yesterday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg on behalf of former Penn State women's basketball player Jennifer Harris.

The federal discrimination lawsuit named Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland, athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State University as defendants. The suit alleges that, during Harris' two seasons playing for the Lady Lions, Portland repeatedly questioned Harris about her sexual orientation and pressured the player to appear "more feminine." The suit also alleges that Portland harassed and targeted Harris and other black athletes and told student-athletes not to associate with Harris and other Lady Lions' players the coach construed as being homosexual.

Harris, a former standout at Central Dauphin High School and Pennsylvania's 2003 Gatorade Player of the Year, transferred to James Madison after Penn State's first-round NCAA tournament loss against Liberty last season. As per NCAA transfer rules, she is sitting out this season.

"My departure from Penn State was very painful," Harris said. "I struggled with whether I should just walk away and try to forget what happened. I finally realized that I could never put this incident behind me."

A phone message left yesterday at the Penn State sports information office seeking a comment regarding the lawsuit from spokeswoman Erin Whiteside or Portland was not returned. Portland has previously denied allegations of discrimination in her program.

That Harris' issue has progressed from NCLR allegations and a letter of complaint in October to a lawsuit, doesn't surprise Cindy Davies, an Indiana (Pa.) High School graduate who played for the Lady Lions in the 1980-81 season before transferring to IUP.

While Davies isn't involved with Harris' suit, she alleges she was discriminated against by Portland 25 years ago because the coach thought she was homosexual.

"Rene needs to come to terms with what she has done to people like Jen Harris and myself and many others who haven't come out in public because of a variety of reasons," Davies said in a phone interview from her home in Texas last night.

"I don't wish anything bad on Rene Portland, I'm not that kind of person. But when she comes out and says that she doesn't discriminate against players she feels are gay, well, that is just [expletive]. I'm sorry to use that word, but there is no other way to describe it. It is just [expletive]."

Karen Doering, an attorney for the NCLR, said the suit was filed after all other avenues had failed in the organization's attempts to have Portland reprimanded by the university for the alleged discrimination against Harris.

"Honestly, we didn't want it to progress to this point, but we didn't have a choice after being ignored," Doering said. "Our first goal is to always resolve a case without litigation, but, here, Rene Portland was very uncooperative. We would still be open to trying to settle this without a lawsuit, but, at this time, I feel like in order to get the action we would like, that a suit is the best way to do so. We have attempted to work with Penn State and made attempts to identify who Rene Portland's personal legal counsel is, but, to this point, we have largely been ignored.

"Because of all of that, this was the step we feel we needed to take."

The NCLR is seeking unspecified damages in excess of $50,000 for Harris and also is asking that the court order Penn State to conduct an annual -- and mandated -- non-discrimination training convention for all athletic department employees. In addition, the NCLR wants Penn State to create new policies helping students to report discrimination without fear of retaliation.