ACLU sues NMSU, alleges religious discrimination by football coach against Muslim players

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against New Mexico State University Monday alleging that head football coach Hal Mumme discriminated against three former players because they are Muslim.

The lawsuit didn’t come as a surprise. After the allegations surfaced last year, the ACLU said it was preparing a lawsuit. But the news came three days before the Aggie season opener and became, for a time, the top college football story in the nation.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico chapter of the ACLU, told the Las Cruces Sun-News the season’s start had nothing to do with the timing of the lawsuit, adding that anyone who believes so “is seriously overestimating the sports sense in the office. That, quite honestly, had nothing to do with it.”

Aggie athletics finds itself in a familiar situation to start the school year: In addition to the lawsuit, a star basketball player is charged with robbery. Why is there always so much controversy?

NMSU’s attorney declined comment on the lawsuit, according to the Sun-News, saying the university had not yet been served with a copy.

A short recap of the allegations:

There are three former players involved in the lawsuit, Mu’Ammar Ali, Anthony Thompson and Vincent Thompson. The lawsuit alleges that Mumme became aware the three were Muslim when they recited passages from the Koran off to the side while the rest of the team recited the Lord’s Prayer, a practice initiated during spring practices in 2005.

Ali claims he was demoted and kept off the team’s travel roster after the first game, according to the Sun-News. He was later cut from the team and transferred. He also claimed Mumme questioned him in July 2005 about al-Qaida.

“Being coach doesn’t give someone the right to make a football team into a religious brotherhood,” Simonson told the Sun-News. “University coaches are tax-paid role models. The public has a right to expect that they are going to model behaviors that we endorse as a society. Religious intolerance is not one of those behaviors.”

There is a hole in the claims of the lawsuit: Mumme named Ali a starter for the first game of the season. His play began to lessen after that, though Ali alleges Mumme knew of his Islamic beliefs long before that.

Simonson told the Sun-News that “Mumme’s opinion of the Muslim players was being developed” before and after the first game.

A law firm hired by NMSU to probe the allegations last year found them to be without merit.

You can read the entire complaint via the Sun-News Web site by clicking here.