Lafayette College seeks dismissal of lawsuit by former men’s basketball coach Mike Jordan

Former Lafayette coach Mike Jordan coaches during a December 2022 game at La Salle.

Lafayette College filed a response to a November discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit from former men’s basketball coach Mike Jordan, denying the suit’s allegations and seeking its dismissal.

According to court documents filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Lafayette says Jordan was fired with cause from his position in March “for gross misconduct and/or insubordination” after an outside investigation following a written complaint to the school by a player.

Lafayette denied Jordan’s racial discrimination claims, according to the court documents, and says it is not liable for any of the $5 million sought in Jordan’s lawsuit, which claims the former coach is owed payment of his five-year contract, plus “damages to his reputation and the loss of future earnings.”

Background: Former Penn star Mike Jordan sues Lafayette College over his firing as basketball coach

Jordan, a Germantown native who starred at Penn and is a member of the Big 5 Hall of Fame, was hired at Lafayette to replace longtime coach Fran O’Hanlon in March 2022. He was placed on paid leave less than a year into the job in February as the school said it was investigating a complaint it received “about his work as head coach.”

The letter, Jordan’s lawsuit claimed, said Jordan’s coaching was “too rigorous, and that his language around players was too harsh.”

Lafayette, according to the court filing, said that Jordan “verbally abused players including the use of terms that were sexist, racist and ableist; questioned the integrity of, and mocked, injured players who were following instructions of the medical staff; and retaliated against the student-athlete for voicing his concerns.”

Jordan referred all comments to his lawyer, Riley Ross of Philadelphia’s Mincey Fitzpatrick Ross, who was traveling and had not yet reviewed the entirety of Lafayette’s filing.

“We definitely deny these allegations and if that was the basis for termination it makes me wonder why they offered him the option to resign,” Ross said when presented with Lafayette’s allegations.

Lafayette declined a request for comment Friday afternoon.

The Easton, Pa.-based college did acknowledge in the court filing that it gave Jordan a chance to resign before he was fired but denied it “ had no basis to terminate,” as Jordan’s suit alleged.

During his interview with investigators, Jordan disputed the allegations made by the player, the lawsuit says, which Lafayette denied in its response.

Jordan also provided the school and its investigators the names of 47 people to speak about Jordan’s character and “refute the claims made in the letter,” according to the lawsuit. Lafayette’s response acknowledged the number of names provided but said “the vast majority” of the names provided would not “have been in a position to have first-hand knowledge concerning the majority of the allegations made in the written complaints,” according to the court filing.

Lafayette denied other Jordan allegations, including that O’Hanlon was the subject of repeated complaints without discipline. The school also refutes Jordan’s claim that hiring one of his assistants as his replacement, Mike McGarvey, proves that nothing was wrong with Jordan’s coaching style.

Jordan’s suit said the reason for his termination, the letter, and investigation, was a “pretext to terminate” Jordan “without having to pay him what he was owed under his contract and a pretext for racial discrimination.”

Damages suffered by Jordan, Lafayette’s court filing says, were due to his “own wrongful acts, misconduct and/or negligence.”

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