Dixon alleges she was discriminated against after she filed with the SMPD
DOWNTOWN LA — A gender discrimination suit against the City of Santa Monica is expected to go to trial next month, more than two years after it was filed by a former employee.
In the suit, filed in 2004, Jessie Dixon, a former employee in the city’s tennis program, alleges she was discriminated against after she reported to the Santa Monica Police Department that a person she believes to be an acquaintance of one of her supervisors had sexually assaulted her son.
The lawsuit is in the midst of an ongoing settlement discussion between both parties,but there is a trial date set for Dec. 4, said Carol Rohr, deputy city attorney, on Thursday.
Rohr declined to comment further on the case since it relates to a personnel matter.
Dixon’s attorney, Allen Felahy, did not return multiple calls requesting comment.
The suit names the city; Community Programs manager Kathy LePrevost; Therapeutic Programs Supervisor Danny Price; Richard Rollins, another supervisor; and one unnamed party as defendants in the case. The name of the final defendant is being withheld until Dixon is able to ascertain the person’s name, the lawsuit states.
The plaintiff alleges unlawful discrimination based upon sex; intentional infliction of emotional distress; failure to prevent sexual discrimination and hostile work environment; unlawful retaliation; unlawful whistle blower retaliation; and wrongful termination in violation of public policy.
It’s an issue that is still commonly seen in the United States, where the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received more than 23,000 reports in 2005, according to James Ryan, a spokesman for the EEOC.
“There is more consciousness that discrimination is wrong,” Ryan said. “But there are still too many people who don’t know they have rights.”
The problem has transformed in the past few decades from being a blatant act of disrespect in the workplace to more subtle ways of discrimination, said Paula Brantner, program director for Workplace Fairness, a non-profit organization that advocates for and educates about equal treatment for all employees.
Gender discrimination is commonly seen in the “glass ceiling” or through double standards, Brantner said. For example, whereas an aggressive quality is seen as attractive in a salesman, a saleswoman with the same characteristic can be seen as a “bitch,”Brantner said.
“There is still a lot of certain behavior that in men is considered acceptable, whereas in women, it’s perceived as unfeminine,” Brantner said.
The issues listed in the suit date back to 2000, when Dixon’s son, who was 4 years old at the time, was allegedly assaulted by a tennis instructor by the name of Bruno Santi, whom she believes was a friend of Rollins.
“As a result of plaintiff’s complaints to her supervisor and the police regarding the Mr. Santi’s wrongful conduct, defendant Rollins’ attitude toward plaintiff changed such that he became hostile and resentful of plaintiff,”the suit states.
“Indeed, plaintiff believes that as a result of her complaints against Mr. Santi, defendant Rollins harbored a retaliatory animus against plaintiff such that when the opportunity presented itself, he refused to promote her to Community Services Specialist V, despite her satisfactory qualifications for said position.”
When Dixon applied for the promotion, her title was Community Services Specialist IV.
The suit claims that both Price and Rollins refused to complete a supervisor ability section of Dixon’s employee evaluation in 2002, even though they had done so in her previous evaluations. Dixon claims she was denied the promotion, when she applied for an opening in December 2002, about eight months after the employee evaluation incident, even though she scored in the top three on a written examination.
The promotion was instead granted to Mike Baliski, a temporary employee “with no experience in the Tennis Program,” the suit claims.
Dixon was placed on administrative leave on Sept. 31, 2003, which she believes was a result of the incident involving her son, and repeated complaints about the defendants’conduct regarding her promotion.
A sexual discrimination report was filed with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing two months after Dixon was placed on administrative leave.After filing the report, Dixon was fired. The defendants allegedly fired Dixon because she had deleted files from her work computer without authorization, and canceled the annual National Junior Tennis League.
In the lawsuit, however, Dixon claims she saved the files on a disk and provided them to the defendants. As for the tournament, Dixon said she advised a National Junior Tennis League representative to direct any further correspondence to the defendants. When the representative failed to do so, the tournament was canceled, the lawsuit said.
LePrevost and the unidentified defendant are named in the lawsuit because Dixon believes they failed to remedy the situation involving Price and Rollins.
Dixon seeks punitive damages.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 17, 2006. Read the original PDF.