THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 30, 1994 TAG: 9412300467
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Three middle-aged men who were demoted or fired last year when Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette shook up the bureaucracy have filed federal discrimination lawsuits against the School Board.
The former school administrators claim they lost their jobs because of their age and gender. All three are men age 43 to 57.
The three men had complained previously to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. On Sept. 30, after staff investigations, the commission rejected all three claims.
The lawsuits were filed Tuesday in Norfolk's federal court. All three name the School Board as defendant. Two also name Assistant Superintendent K. Edwin Brown as a defendant.
Each lawsuit seeks at least $50,000 in compensatory damages, unspecified punitive damages and back pay.
All three claim that during Faucette's reorganization, ``numerous positions were created for females, or females were permitted to transfer laterally with little or no effect in their labor grades or salaries,'' but men were denied this opportunity.
On Thursday, Brown declined to comment on the lawsuits. Faucette could not be reached for comment.
The suits come just two months after another former Virginia Beach school official, Assistant Superintendent Andrew T. Carrington, sued the School Board over his dismissal in November 1993. He seeks $2.85 million in damages.
The three men who filed suit this week are:
Michael T. Gilliatt, 50, former art coordinator. He was demoted to a job with less pay.
Gilliatt claims he was the victim of ``outrageous and illegal sexual harassment by Brown'' in March 1992. He says that after he rejected Brown's advances, Brown retaliated with a letter of reprimand on an unrelated matter, then recommended that Gilliatt's job be abolished, when Faucette reorganized the school administration in March 1993.
Gilliatt complained to the EEOC of age- and sex-discrimination, but the agency found that he was the less-senior of two art coordinators at a time when Faucette needed only one.
Allen S. Cohen, 43, former director of financial services. He was fired.
Cohen claims that after he was fired, he applied to become the school system's chief financial officer but was not allowed to interview ``even though he is highly qualified.'' Instead, Cohen claims, a younger female applicant got the job.
The EEOC found that the woman who was hired was 40 and had prior experience as a chief financial officer.
John Roberson, 57, former math coordinator who started teaching 30 years ago. He is now a math teacher in the Beach school system.
Roberson claims he, too, was demoted because of age and gender. The EEOC found, however, that other coordinators of similar age, both men and women, were not demoted.
The lawsuits were filed by lawyers Mark D. Brynteson and Mark R. Skolrood. All three allege sex- and age-discrimination, violation of due process rights and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The School Board and Brown have three weeks to file replies.
KEYWORDS: DISCRIMINATION SUITS by CNB