A former employee has filed a federal lawsuit against the Alabama High School Athletic Association, alleging gender, age, and race discrimination after she was denied a promotion to lead the organization.

The case 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 in the last 12 months. 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.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued right to sue notices on July 17, 2025, for Vickers’ original and supplemental Equal Employment Opportunity charges.

Vickers was hired under former AHSAA executive director Steve Savarese in December or 2014 as director of publications. She was promoted to assistant director and eligibility coordinator in 2018 and to associate executive director in 2021 under former executive director Alvin Briggs.

Briggs announced his retirement from the job in 2024, opening a search by the AHSAA’s Central Board of Control for the next executive director. Vickers, the No. 2 person on staff at the time, applied for the job and was one of five candidates interviewed by the Board.

The Board narrowed the candidates down to two men and former Oxford High principal Heath Harmon was hired on June 6, 2024. He remains the AHSAA’s executive director today.

Vickers alleges in the suit that she was “substantially” more qualified than Harmon. She also had applied for the position in 2021 when Briggs was selected to follow Savarese in the job. Harmon is just the sixth full-time director of the AHSAA. All have been males.

There has never been a female in the Executive Director position since the founding of the association in 1921, the lawsuit states.

The suit alleges that “because Harmon was less qualified than (the) Plaintiff, she was required to explain to him day-to-day operations and other basic knowledge” of the job. It also alleges that Harmon excluded her from meetings and interviews and demoted her to her former position after she filed her first EEOC Charge.

In 1968, a court order mandated the merger of the AHSAA with the Alabama Interscholastic Athletic Association, which had previously overseen athletics at segregated African-American schools in Alabama. That order mandated that the top two positions in the AHSAA be occupied by persons of the opposite race, representative of each of those organizations.

Vickers and Harmon are both white. Brian McRae, who is black, was hired by Harmon as the new associate executive director.

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.

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.

A text message to Harmon on Sunday afternoon was not immediately returned.

See the complete complaint below.