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Employee sues Southwestern College, alleging discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation

Southwestern College
Southwestern College
( / Courtesy of Southwestern College)

Lawsuit says defendant told coworker, a fellow Christian who is lesbian, that homosexuality is a sin

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An employee at Southwestern College filed suit against the school, alleging one of her coworkers discriminated against her on the basis of her religion and sexual orientation and that the school ignored the issue for years.

Rachel Francois, who has worked as a clerk at Southwestern College for 12 years, is a Christian and a lesbian. Her lawsuit alleges her identity led to issues with a fellow clerk who has since retired, Norma Rich, who complained that Francois’s homosexuality was in contradiction to her Christian beliefs.

Both women identify as Christians.

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Their relationship took a turn in the spring of 2012 when Francois ran into Rich while Francois was shopping with her partner. The lawsuit says Rich started making unwelcome comments about Francois’s sexuality, including telling her “being gay is a sin in her religion.”

The lawsuit says these comments were followed by invitations to Rich’s church where, Rich said, Francois would have to go to receive therapy meant to “de-program” homosexuals.

The lawsuit also said new hires in their office would regularly be pulled aside by Rich and informed of Francois’s sexuality.

The attorney representing Francois, James Davis, said this case shows that divides can come up between people of the same religion.

“Some hardcore religious people still don’t recognize or want to recognize people who have alternative lifestyles,” Davis said in a phone conversation.

Both Rich and Southwestern College are listed as the defendants in this case.

Rich declined to comment on this story, referring questions to her attorney, who was not identified.

Southwestern College’s representative Lillian Leopold also would not comment on pending litigation.

The case was filed on Aug. 20 and has received no response from the defendants.

Four years after the harassment began, in 2016, the lawsuit said, Francois reached out to supervisors at the school to inform them of the issues. In early 2017, after filing a complaint with human resources regarding the harassment and inaction of the school, Francois was notified her allegations were considered unfounded. She appealed the decision.

In Spring 2017, Francois attempted to transfer to another department in the college to leave the “hostile and harassing work environment she was facing,” the lawsuit said. She was told that, to do this, she would have to withdraw her appeal to the 2016 investigation that declared her allegations unfounded.

The lawsuit claims this is illegal and an act of retaliation.

“You can’t force employees who are already being mistreated to waive their rights in order to be removed from the bad situation,” Davis said.

Warren Paul Beck, a San Diego-based employment law attorney who often deals with discrimination cases, said the allegations that the school retaliated in this way are a clear violation of the law.

“I’ve been doing this for 38 years and I can’t believe the school would be that stupid,” Beck said in a phone conversation.

Beck said the fact that both women are Christian in this religious case is unusual, but that discrimination cases like this do come up from time-to-time. He said there is usually a shared identity between the parties - in this case, religion - but it does not make it impossible for harassment to occur.

The fact this case came out of Southwestern College was not surprising to Davis, who said the school has a track record when it comes to discriminatory behavior.

“There’s been a consistent pattern of this kind of activity at this university,” Davis said. “They’ve been subject to numerous lawsuits, and they’ve settled the vast majority of them because the administration has not been effective in setting a culture on the campus that is open and friendly to all individuals of all lifestyles.”

The school has historically witnessed racial tensions between its Hispanic majority and black minority. A 2018 report by the University of Southern California described the school’s human resource efforts as “dysfunctional,” particularly with issues which affected black employees. The researchers also described the college as one of the “most toxic” educational climates they had ever seen.

Kindred Murillo, the college’s superintendent/president, said in a July interview that she had already worked on 68 investigations during her two-and-a-half years in the position. Most of them were employee claims.

Following the release of the 2018 report by USC, the college hired a firm to investigate its HR practices. The firm found Southwestern’s hiring practices to be inconsistent, subjective and lacking in transparency. Murillo said in June that the college plans to address the issues in part by considering diversity during the hiring process.

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