3 ex-S.C. State cops claim gender-based discrimination
ORANGEBURG, S.C. (WIS) - Three former South Carolina State University campus police officers filed a federal lawsuit against the university and one of its police captains.
The three former officers claim in the lawsuit, filed on Friday, that during their time at SCSU campus police they faced gender-based discrimination and a hostile work environment.
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According to the suit, all of the officers worked at SCSU between September 2022 and June 2023.
The lawsuit claims the three women were “subject to unwelcome sexual conduct” at the hands of Captain Jeblonski Green, who was second-in-command at the university police department.
One example the lawsuit gives is Green bringing the three women to Columbia to pick out uniforms. He made sexually suggestive comments while the women tried on the uniforms, according to the lawsuit.
The three women also experienced “unwelcome physical touching” by Green while they worked at SCSU as officers, the lawsuit says.
Green’s behavior was reported to the SCSU police chief and other officials and the three women claim they were retaliated against, according to the federal filing.
The lawsuit says one of the women filed a Title IX complaint trough the university and shortly after all three women were terminated. When the women questioned their firing, they were told that the funding for their position had run out.
University officials told the women their positions were funded using COVID-19 relief funds, and after that funding ran out, they were terminated, according to the lawsuit.
The three women assert in the lawsuit their employment was not from COVID-19 relief funds and funding from their job came from a grant that the SCSU president secured.
As a result of what happened, the women suffered severe emotional distress and required expert psychiatric care, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit demanded a jury trial.
The three women are being represented by the Strom Law Firm and the Williams & Williams.
A spokesperson for South Carolina State University did not have a comment.
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