ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, March 24, 1997                 TAG: 9703240104
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WOMAN CLAIMING RELIGIOUS HARASSMENT AWARDED $30,250 PRESSURED TO BECOME A BAPTIST

Jury agreed that the state employee, a Unitarian, was subjected to a hostile environment by her supervisor and co-workers.

A Peninsula woman who was pressured to become a Baptist by her supervisor and colleagues at the state Health Department in Hampton has been awarded $30,250 in compensatory damages for religious harassment.

Federal district court jurors agreed that Sonya McIntyre-Handy had been subjected to a hostile environment as a result of the pressure.

The ``hostile environment'' theory typically is used in sexual harassment cases; Thursday's decision may be the first time a jury has applied it to the issue of religious freedom, said McIntyre-Handy's attorney, Deborah Waters of Norfolk.

``They all agreed that she was subjected to a hostile and abusive work environment that was so pervasive and severe that it affected her work performance,'' Waters said. ``It's powerful, because it sets precedent for use of the hostile environment theory in the religious-discrimination setting.''

McIntyre-Handy, a former family support worker with the health department's child abuse prevention unit, sued the state in April for $10 million. The suit claimed that her supervisor and colleagues had pressured her to become a Baptist - and that she was fired in 1995 after she complained.

According to the suit, the harassment started when a supervisor encouraged McIntyre-Handy, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, to discuss her marital problems with a Christian psychotherapist.

The suit also alleged that the supervisor encouraged other employees to convert McIntyre-Handy, and that some employees gave her the silent treatment or held prayer meetings near her desk because she would not embrace Baptist doctrines.

Several experts have said the case would prove interesting because religious freedom has not been tested extensively in the workplace, particularly one run by the government.

``The establishment clause, the separation of church and state, has been interpreted to mean that the government must be neutral in matters of faith,'' Oliver Thomas, a lawyer who also is a minister in Tennessee, said when the suit was filed last year. ``When I'm working for the government, I can't be proselytizing about anything religious.''

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