Four women file sexual harrassment lawsuit against Cuesta College

Posted: Feb 9, 2012 6:30 PM by Nancy Chen
Updated: Feb 10, 2012 8:13 AM

Cuesta College department chair sued for sexual harrassment

Four women are suing Cuesta College because they say a professor there sexually harassed three of them and allege administrators did nothing about it. Three of the women still teach at Cuesta, while the fourth is now a former instructor.

At the center of the suit is Don Norton, the college's division chair of human development. The women say Norton made inappropriate sexual comments and retaliated against one woman because she didn't want to share a hotel suite with him. Cuesta College President Gil Stork says the campus does not comment on personnel issues, and likewise, Norton told KSBY News he wishes he could speak but can't.

Margaret Perez-Sesser, Jan Gillette, Claudia Harmon Worthen and Marilyn Rossa are listed as the plantiffs in the case filed in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on December 30, 2011.

In the lawsuit, Gillette says Norton would "make sexually inappropriate comments such as...'Hey Jan, boobs, bellies and butts. No boobs, bellies and butts." Gilette also says Norton kept a poster outside his door of a woman breastfeeding a baby that read, "Sometimes it's okay to suck up to the boss." On top of that, she alleges he "kept a calendar of bikini models that included a graphic photo of one of his female students, in a thong with her back and buttocks fully exposed."

Gillette says that he would show to her and others and that she objected to him doing so, but he didn't stop. And that's where the line is firmly drawn, according to San Luis Obispo personal injury attorney Don Ernst.

Ernst is not associated with the case but says it can be difficult to discern between a joke and sexual harrassment sometimes. That is until someone complains and the actions continue.

"They need the job, they want to continue to have the job," he said. "They want the behavior to stop. They complain about it. The behavior doesn't stop. It just keeps going, and when that happens, often times, you run into a lawsuit."

The plantiffs say they did complain to numerous superiors, including deans, and nothing was done. In fact, some say they were retaliated against, and that's why Cuesta College as a whole is included in the lawsuit.

Rossa, the fourth woman in the lawsuit, says she was not personally harrassed by Norton but suffered retaliation for helping the other three women. She says that retaliation included being denied her requested class load even though she had first priority.

A case-management conference, or meeting with all parties involved, is set for later this month. That's a mandatory step in the process to see if a trial is needed.