Div School Employee Files Complaint, Charges Sex Discrimination at Job

A first-Divinity School student filed a complaint yesterday with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), charging the divinity School and a Buildings and Grounds supervisor with discrimination in firing her from her custodial job last week.

Constance Ladd Surette said yesterday she was fired from her job at the Andover Theological Library at the Div School on Wednesday because her supervisor did not want a woman on the job.

Eucley Wooten, the supervisor, declined to comment yesterday.

When she began the job in October, Wooten "said he didn't want a woman, she couldn't do the job," Surette said. She added that while she was working there, Wooten "made life totally impossible."

Although Surette's job entailed mostly sweeping and cleaning wastebaskets and ashtrays, Wooten complained to her about dirty windows and unwashed floors, which she had never been instructed to clean, Surette added.

"The guy was insulting, sneering," Surette said. "It was because I was a woman. Nobody else got that treatment."

Divinity School officials were unavailable for comment yesterday, but Susan Carpenter, staff assistant in the dean of students' office said Guy V. Martin, dean of students at the Divinity School was waiting for formal notification of the complaint before making a statement.

Surette said she will file the final papers of her complaint on Monday.

Copies of the complaint will be sent to those charged within ten days after the complaint is filed, an MCAD spokesman said yesterday.

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, said yesterday "we will look into it very carefully," but that he had no immediate comment on the complaint.

Surette said she is hoping to sue the Divinity School for at least $5000, to compensate for mental aggravation Wooten caused her while she was working, and for her loss of income after being fired.

"I live on that 75 dollars a week," Surette said.