Connecticut ping!
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Posted on 12/01/2006 6:50:52 PM PST by Snickering Hound
NEW HAVEN -- A former secretary who claims the head of Yale's pharmacology department subjected her to dirty jokes, lewd comments and pornography has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Yale University in U.S. District Court.
Mary Beth Garceau, 48, who lives in Madison, is suing Yale for back pay and benefits, attorney fees, and damages. She says she was forced to put up with inappropriate behavior from Joseph Schlessinger from the time she began working for him, in 2001, until her decision to resign, nearly three years later. Schlessinger did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
On her first day of work, she says, Schlessinger told a joke to a colleague involving penis size and watched for her response. The lawsuit alleges the harassment got worse. In the months to follow, Schlessinger bragged about the number of women he had slept with, claiming the number came to 46, and commented on the size of her breasts and style of her underwear, the lawsuit claims. The conversations typically arose after Garceau was summoned to his office and asked to sit down, the lawsuit said.
One incident Garceau describes happened while she was trying to schedule an appointment. Schlessinger was angry that a committee had rejected the person he had recommended for a job at the Yale Cancer Center, she says. When she asked him about scheduling a meeting with the director, he answered: "(Expletive) them, I am not meeting with them," the lawsuit says.
"(Expletive) them?"
He answered with a come-on, she alleges: "I bet it would be fun to (expletive) you."
In another incident, she says, Schlessinger asked her to pick him up at home and take him to work so he wouldn't have to leave his car in New Haven during a business trip. She says he greeted her at the door in an open shirt with "no clothes underneath" and asked her to come to his bedroom upstairs and help him pack. She said she felt nervous and afraid but went upstairs because he was her supervisor.
She claims he once showed her pornography on his office computer and, another time, pulled a picture from his desk showing a naked woman without a head and told her it was his wife. At that moment, Schlessinger's wife happened to walk into the office, saw the picture and started yelling at her husband, the suit says. Schlessinger's wife, Irit Lax, is an assistant professor in the same department.
Garceau says she complained to Yale repeatedly about the alleged harassment but when no action was taken, she resigned, in March 2004. She says university officials seemed more interested in protecting Schlessinger's reputation than investigating her complaints.
Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman, said the university believes there was no violation of law. He declined to discuss allegations in the lawsuit or comment on whether Schlessinger may have violated Yale's sexual harassment policy. The university defines sexual harassment as unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors or verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature on campus or off. Violations are punishable by "serious disciplinary action."
Garceau's lawyer, Karen Lee Torre, did not return calls for comment.
A prominent cancer researcher, Schlessinger, along with Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, earlier this year shared a $1 million Dan David prize for innovative research. Schlessinger is an expert in the field of signal transduction - the biological process that regulates how cells start and stop growing and differentiate.
She only waited three years? Why didn't she wait until she reached retirement age - then she could have sued AND gotten the pension.
Instead of taking Viagra or Cialis, Schlessinger should've been taking chill pills...
Hey baby, whaddayasay we talk about this "sexual harassment" thing over cocktails at my place tonight?;)
One major component of any sexual harrassment claim wasn't even addressed in the article. Did she ever tell him that she didn't appreciate his comments, or ask him to stop? Sexual Harrassment, by definition, is "unwanted." If, guaging by her reactions, the man felt they were not unwanted (no matter how disgusting or lewd they were), then she'll have a difficult time proving her case.
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
To be clear, he's not with MD Anderson Cancer Center though.
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