Los Angeles Sparks Accused of Sexual Discrimination in Lawsuit

When contacted on Tuesday, Holoman said he was not aware of a lawsuit being filed. Neither Simmons nor Agler could immediately be reached on Tuesday for comment.

Toler, who had been with the franchise as a player or general manager since it was founded in 1997, described a soap-opera like atmosphere in the lawsuit that included sexual relationships between Simmons and a ball boy and the coach and a player.

“It looks like she was singled out and treated differently because she was a woman,” Dawn Collins, Toler’s attorney, told The Associated Press, referring to Toler’s postgame comments. “Coaches speak to their players to get them fired up, many coaches use harsher language and far more controversial language. If the term is not O.K., it’s not O.K. for everyone.”

It is unclear who within the Sparks organization Toler registered her complaints with about what she said was a relationship between Simmons and Holoman. However, Toler said in the suit that even after Simmons left the organization in 2018 she had influence on decisions the team would make because of her personal relationship with Holoman. Toler said she was looking into trading Candace Parker, the franchise star, but because Simmons and Parker were close Holoman wouldn’t let her make a deal.

“I wasn’t part of the clique,” Toler told The Associated Press. “Every day people would have no idea what I went through here working for the Sparks after they were acquired by this ownership.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/sports/basketball/sparks-penny-toler-lawsuit.html