Claiming racial bias, former basketball coach sues Nampa School District
A former Nampa High School boys basketball coach filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Nampa School District alleging that racial discrimination cost him his job.
James Daye, who is African-American, is seeking more than $300,000 for emotional damages, as well as lost past and future income, after he claimed the school district “wrongfully terminated” him in the summer of 2017.
“He was wrongfully terminated based on his race as an African-American, despite the fact that he had been an exemplary coach the prior season and the summer training camp for the varsity boys, was the most well-qualified candidate for the position, and had already demonstrated vast improvements in the individual boys basketball players’ skills and the team as a whole,” the lawsuit states.
Nampa School District spokeswoman Kathleen Tuck denied race played a factor in Daye’s dismissal on Thursday afternoon but said she couldn’t comment further.
Daye’s attorney, Robert Huntley of the Huntley Law Firm, declined to comment Thursday.
Daye came to Nampa High as a JV girls basketball coach during the 2016-17 season. The school district then announced in a press release on June 23, 2017, that he would take over its boys basketball program.
But past allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old female student soon came to light, and the district rescinded its employment offer in July 2017. Daye never coached a regular-season game with the boys basketball team.
Tuck said the Nampa School District doesn’t officially hire a teacher or coach until the start of the school year, and a coach’s contract would cover only that sport’s season. Any work outside of the season would be as a volunteer.
Daye previously told the Idaho Statesman that he informed Nampa High about the allegation, and denied it, before coaching the girls basketball team the previous year. District officials have repeatedly said that they can’t confirm or deny whether they knew of the allegation because of personnel policy.
Daye reapplied to coach Nampa later in the summer of 2017. But when the school did not rehire him, Daye hired the Huntley Law Firm and filed a discrimination complaint with the Idaho Human Rights Commission in November 2017, a precursor to Thursday’s lawsuit.
“It’s like murderers have probably had less scrutiny than I have over an unproven allegation,” Daye said in 2017.
The allegation dates back to 1991, when Daye coached in Greenville, South Carolina. Daye, then 27, denies having an inappropriate relationship with the 17-year-old and said he left J.L. Mann Academy without coaching a game to manage a jazz club in North Carolina because of its higher salary.
Criminal charges were not filed. The age of consent in South Carolina is 16.
The allegations resurfaced when the Buffalo News published the account of the former J.L. Mann student in 2008, while Daye coached at Buffalo’s McKinley High School. This started an investigation by the New York State Education Department. Before hearings could begin in 2009, Daye resigned from McKinley High, and signed an agreement to surrender his teaching certificates and permanently waive the right to reapply for them in New York.
Daye told the Statesman in 2017 that he signed the agreement because he spent $60,000 in legal fees in two years.
