Former Penn State women's basketball player Jen Harris will file a suit against the university and Lady Lions coach Rene Portland if comments made by Portland are not retracted by the university by tomorrow.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), a gay advocacy group acting on behalf of Harris, has accused Portland of a bias against lesbians. Harris, who is not a lesbian, is alleging that she was dismissed from the team because Portland thought she was a lesbian.

In a statement on Friday, Portland said Harris "did not meet the level of commitment I expect all players to have to this great program, which includes performance during games, performance during practices, physical conditioning and performance in the classroom."

Harris originally threatened legal action on the basis of harassment and will now be adding claims of defamation to future legal action, her attorney said.

"There is no First Amendment right to make false and malicious allegations," Karen Doering, Harris' lawyer, said. "It doesn't take a lot of investigation by the university to see that coach Portland's statement contains false information."

Doering called Portland's statement "patently false" since Harris' academic performance was above minimum NCAA requirements. Harris' grade point average was about 3.0, according to the NCLR. The NCAA minimum is 2.0.

A rally, organized by the Student Stonewall Coalition, will be held at noon today on the ground floor of the HUB-Robeson Center to show support for Harris and "demand Rene Portland's dismissal from Penn State," according to a press release.

A teleconference between university lawyers and Harris' lawyers is also scheduled to take place at noon today.

"Our original intent was to work with and cooperate with the university and assist them in their investigation," Doering said. "However, now that the university has put out statements making false and defamatory remarks about our client, we can no longer sit back and wait to begin the legal process that will enable us to produce evidence to prove that the allegations Jen Harris made are true."

Doering said that since Portland's statement was released through a university media relations department, the university is accountable for Portland's statements.

"Anyone who receives a media statement from coach Portland that is put out through Penn State media channels is going to assume that she's speaking on behalf of the university," Doering said.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said it was "ridiculous" to ask the university to retract Portland's statement.

"The coach has every constitutional right to respond," Mahon said. "We sincerely want to look into the allegations that have been made. We'll do it thoroughly and we'll do it fairly, but we need more than a couple hours to do that."

Mahon said the university is encouraging the center to cooperate with its investigation efforts, stressing that the investigation will take several days to conduct.

"We don't go out and fire people because somebody made an allegation," Mahon said. "I think the center ought to step back if they're interested in finding out what happened here. Why don't we let the process occur? We need a couple days to look into the allegations. We're happy to do that because they're serious allegations."

Penn State athletic spokesman Jeff Nelson said the athletic department is referring all further comment to the university spokesmen.