IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A discrimination complaint alleges that qualified male candidates were repeatedly passed over for an assistant job in the University of Iowa track program after athletic department administrators mandated that a woman be hired. The complaint filed by former Iowa assistant Mike Scott says that track and field director Larry Wieczorek joked during the hiring process that Scott should consider having a sex change operation to improve his prospects.

Scott alleges that, in their quest to hire a woman, administrators rejected a committee’s recommendation to offer the job to a highly qualified male candidate and twice rewrote the position description to try to attract more females. After three postings spanning more than one year, the university hired Molly Jones in September.

A university spokesman declined to respond to Scott’s allegations.