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LEHI, Utah (AP) -- The mother of a Lehi High School basketball player said she is satisfied with an apology by a coach who she said used a racial epithet, but is unhappy with school and district policies.
Jeanette Allen of Eagle Mountain said coach Craig Gladwell told the players after a December game that a chant the team did to hype themselves up "made you look like a bunch of jigaboos."
Allen's son was not singled out on the mostly white team -- but parents were looking to her to take action, she said. Allen is white and married to a black man.
She complained to school administration and asked for an apology to the team and parents.
She said Principal Chuck Bearce told her that Gladwell's actions were innocent.
"It's as close to the 'n' word as you can get," Allen said. "It's like a cancer. As long as you ignore it, it's just going to grow."
Bearce said the coach is not racist.
"We all know that in the heat of the moment and in the competitive nature of sports sometimes we say things that come out not the way we mean things to come out, and by the time they go from one person to another to another, the meaning has totally changed," Bearce said. "I believe he will be more careful with what he says, and I think the issue is already put to rest."
Gladwell did not return repeated phone calls from The Daily Herald to his office and home seeking comment. He apologized to the Allens on Tuesday. It's an apology Jeanette said she's satisfied with.
But Allen is concerned with the district's anti-discrimination policy, which she said has no teeth.
"It's about half a paragraph, and it simply says our policy is to be nice to each other, which is an absolute joke. There's no policy on what happens if somebody does something wrong," she said.
The policy says, "Educators and students alike should develop a sensitivity to the feelings and attitudes of others in their use of language and that they work to gain an understanding and respect of the many cultures, races, religions and ideologies which make up the United States of America."
District spokeswoman Jerrilyn Mortensen said the format is typical of most district policies. "All of our policies are pretty broad-based because it allows communities to use the policies to meet their community needs."
Assistant Superintendent Gary Seastrand said few district policies list consequences for breaking them.
The district does not tolerate racism, he said, and discipline for egregious offenses is handled through the human resources department.
"If the principal makes a determination it was perhaps an innocent comment with no intention of being racist, they have the right and responsibility of trying to work through that issue locally at the school," he said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
