A former Alabama High School Athletic Association employee has filed a federal lawsuit against the AHSAA, alleging gender, age and race discrimination after she was denied a promotion to serve as the association's executive director.
As reported by al.com, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kim Vickers, former associate executive director of the AHSAA, in Middle District Court of Alabama.
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A former Alabama High School Athletic Association employee has filed a federal lawsuit against the AHSAA, alleging gender, age and race discrimination after she was denied a promotion to serve as the association's executive director.
As reported by al.com, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kim Vickers, former associate executive director of the AHSAA, in Middle District Court of Alabama.
Vickers, 59, has previously filed three discrimination complaints against the AHSAA within the past 12 months, al.com's Ben Thomas reported. She filed an original charge on July 12, 2024, followed by a supplemental charge on Oct. 25, 2024, and another on June 25, 2025, following her termination from the AHSAA.
Per Thomas' reporting, Vickers was hired under former AHSAA executive director Steve Savarese in December 2014. By 2021, she had ascended to associate executive director following three promotions, but was denied the chance to succeed Savarese that year.
When then executive director Alvin Briggs retired in 2024, Vickers again applied for the top job and was one of five candidates interviewed.
Vickers, the number-two ranking executive in the association at the time, alleges in the suit that she was “substantially” more qualified than the AHSAA's eventual pick, Heath Harmon, a former high school principal who heads the AHSAA to this day. Harmon is just the sixth full-time director of the AHSAA, which was founded in 1921, and all its executive directors have been males, Thomas reported, citing language in the lawsuit.
In 1968, according to Thomas, a court ordered merger of the AHSAA with the Alabama Interscholastic Athletic Association, which had previously overseen athletics at segregated African-American schools in Alabama, mandated that the top two positions in the AHSAA be occupied by persons of different races.
Vickers and Harmon are both white. Brian McRae, who is black, was hired by Harmon as the new associate executive director, Thomas reported.
According to Thomas, Vickers’ suit states that “because McRae had little to no experience in athletic administration, he was substantially less qualified than the Plaintiff for the job, if even qualified at all.” It also alleges that Harmon “continued to discriminate and retaliate against her by excluding her from meetings, including committee meetings, interviews, government relations and other parts of her job.”
"On June 23, 2025, according to the complaint, Harmon called Vickers into his office and told her it was not working out and the two needed to part ways. The suit states Vickers asked Harmon if she was being fired because she had filed EEOC charges, and Harmon refused to answer," Thomas wrote for al.com. "Vickers, who was inducted into the AHSAA Hall of Fame in 2024, is seeking reinstatement into the position she should have held as well as compensatory, punitive and liquidated damages."
