(San Diego, Calif.) The National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of two former women’s college basketball coaches who claim they were fired after speaking out about unequal treatment of female athletes and coaches.

The complaint alleges that San Diego Mesa College fired Lorri Sulpizio, the former Head Coach of the women’s basketball team, and Cathy Bass, the former Director of Basketball Operations, despite their demonstrated track record of success.

Mesa officials fired both coaches at the end of the 2007 academic year after they spoke out publicly against  unequal treatment in a local paper which identified them as domestic partners.

“While at Mesa, we put the welfare of student-athletes first. We coached outstanding student-athletes to success on the courts and in the classrooms,” said Sulpizio.

“We should have been able to advocate for equal treatment of women athletes and faculty without retaliation. Instead, Mesa fired us both for raising issues of unequal treatment,” she said.

The complaint alleges that Mesa officials retaliated against Sulpizio and Bass for repeatedly raising concerns about unequal treatment of female athletes and faculty, as well as discriminating against them and ultimately firing them based on their gender and sexual orientation. The NCLR says that the school violated numerous federal and state laws, as well as the California constitution.

Sulpizio and Bass are seeking mandatory training for all athletic department faculty on the prevention of gender and sexual orientation discrimination. They also want Mesa’s Athletic Department to comply with Title IX, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

“Coach Sulpizio and Coach Bass should have been able to continue coaching and running an excellent college basketball program at Mesa,” said NCLR sports project Director Helen Carroll.

“By firing these two coaches, Mesa is depriving their student-athletes of dedicated coaches who serve as outstanding role models in a sports world with fewer and fewer female coaches,” she said.

Sulpizio served as head coach of the Mesa women’s basketball team from 2002-2007, after spending four years in other coaching positions. She regularly led the team to championship play at tournaments, and secured high-level finishes in Pacific Coast Conference Championship tournaments in several seasons.

The Mesa women’s basketball team won first place in the 2001-2002 season and third place in both the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons.

Bass began working at Mesa as assistant coach to the women’s basketball team in 1999, and was appointed as an adjunct faculty member and made Director of Basketball Operations for the team in 2006.

Sulpizio and Bass are registered domestic partners in the State of California, and together they have three children.