Sex Discrimination Suit Filed Against University of Saint Joseph

WEST HARTFORD, CT — A former associate athletic director who was terminated by the University of Saint Joseph in June filed a Title IX sexual discrimination lawsuit against the university, implicating men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun and assistant Glen Miller, among others, of engaging in sexually harassing behavior. The suit was filed Wednesday in United States District Court on behalf of Jaclyn Piscitelli, who begun working at the university in 2011 and was named associate athletic director in 2015.

The university is listed as the sole defendant, according to a copy of the filing obtained by Patch. Saint Joseph, founded by the Sisters of Mercy of Connecticut in 1932, was an all-female institution until announcing in June 2017 that it would begin admitting males to its undergraduate programs for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Calhoun, who coached at the University of Connecticut for 26 years and is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, came out of retirement to become the school's first men's basketball coach in 2018. Miller, who had been an assistant coach under Calhoun at UConn, was hired as assistant coach.

The lawsuit accused the university, through athletic director Bill Cardarelli, "gave Calhoun and his team preferential treatment including by diverting resources from women’s sports to do so." Piscitelli claims, "almost immediately after Calhoun and Miller began their full-time employment with [Saint Joseph], the athletic department became a male-dominated, hostile work environment."

Piscitelli says she "reported unfair treatment she had suffered since the Athletic Department had become a male-dominated environment" to Vice President of Student Affairs Ken Bedini "on numerous occasions throughout the 2018-2019 academic year.," and that the university "permitted Calhoun and Miller to transform the work environment in the athletic department to one that was openly hostile and disdainful toward women and where women were treated as second class citizens."

The lawsuit claims, "Beginning in fall 2018, [Piscitelli's] male co-workers would frequently leave work to play golf with Calhoun during the workday, while [she] remained at the office." Having previously occupied a private office, Piscitelli was made to share an office with two newly-hired male employees in 2018.

"In her position as Associate Athletic Director, [she] held the role of [the university's] NCAA Compliance Coordinator," according to the lawsuit. "In this role, [she] was required to participate in weekly conference calls which were required to be confidential. [Piscitelli] asked Cardarelli where she could go to take these calls given the confidential nature of them and her now-shared office. In response, Cardarelli told [her] to work in a locker room and take the calls there. When [she] then tried to discuss the situation further with Cardarelli and requested to work from home for the short time each week she needed to be on the NCAA Compliance conference, he walked out of the office, while [Piscitelli] was still speaking to him, so he could introduce his daughter to Calhoun."

The addition of new male teams in 2018 caused a marked increase in Piscitelli's workload, but repeated requests for additional help were denied, she claims. However, sports information director Josh Ingham was granted a 20 hours per week assistant, plus an intern and a graduate assistant.

The lawsuit cites instances of the favoritism shown to male employees of the athletic department.

One example reported was, "Ingham regularly failed to write and post post-game stories related to women’s sports in a timely manner, giving priority to men’s sports... On one occasion, the coach of the women’s swim team, a female, complained that no post-meet story had been written about her team. Cardarelli was dismissive toward this coach and later stated that she 'needs to calm down.'"

In the lawsuit, Piscitelli says she was placed "under an enormous amount of stress due to her job and work environment. She was working almost constantly with little time off, at one point working 23 consecutive days... Due to the stress and medical symptoms she was experiencing, [she] sought treatment with both her primary care physician and cardiologist for emotional distress."

Calhoun is cited in the lawsuit as being rude and condescending toward Piscitelli. He "consistently and repeatedly told [her] to open his office door for him, even when he had his office keys in his hands, and without so much as a simple 'hello.' There was an instance in which Calhoun knocked a number of single-serve coffee K-cups onto the floor and stepped on them, creating a mess of coffee grounds and packaging on the floor and made [Piscitelli] clean them up, stating that if he made such a mess at home, his wife would clean up after him."

Inappropriate comments directed at Piscitelli from the men's basketball coaches are also included in the lawsuit. On one occasion, "Calhoun made a statement to [Piscitelli], 'Well, you’re certainly hot,' using 'hot' in its slang usage to mean physically or sexually attractive. Miller also made numerous inappropriate comments to [her], including criticizing her for not being cheerful or smiling enough. On one occasion when [Piscitelli] had a serious, professional demeanor, Miller said to her, 'I’d swipe left too.' Miller’s statement was a reference to the popular dating app Tinder, in which users may swipe left to reject further contact with another user or swipe right to indicate sexual or romantic interest in another user."

Following that exchange with Miller, Piscitelli "felt this comment went too far and was too personal and considered reporting it to [the university's] Human Resources department, but feared retaliation, particularly given Miller’s affiliation with Calhoun, who was favored and fawned over by [Saint Joseph's] administrators because of his celebrity status. [She] reported the inappropriate and sexually harassing comments of Calhoun and Miller to Cardarelli," but no action was taken, according to the lawsuit.

Following a June meeting of a majority of the athletic department, including the university's new athletic director, "Miller approached [Piscitelli] and said, 'you’re feisty, I like it,' implying this turned him on sexually, and then proceeded to attempt to engage [her] in play fighting by putting his fists up while asking, 'do you want to fight me?', the lawsuit claims.

In late spring, according to the lawsuit, Calhoun called Piscitelli into his office to complain about another employee, Mary Cooper, the only other female working in the athletic department office. On two occasions, he was accused of referring to Cooper as a "bitch" and said, "When Mary asks me what to do with work I hand her, I want to tell her to ‘shove it up her ass.’ Calhoun went on to say he was ready to go to the [university] president to have Cooper fired."

Piscitelli said she immediately informed Cardarelli and Bedini of Calhoun's remarks, "and told Bedini she was informing him so that someone was aware of Calhoun’s behavior and to seek his advice regarding Calhoun’s comments about Cooper," the lawsuit states.

Piscitelli accused Bedini took not action regarding her concerns, instead saying he "ignored and brushed aside [her] complaints, reacting in such a way as to suggest that [she] was causing trouble by opposing sexist conduct in the workplace," the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit continued, "During the spring 2019 semester, [Piscitelli] expressed to Bedini that she was considering seeking other employment because her working environment had become almost intolerable given the “boys club” atmosphere that had taken over. Rather than taking any action to remedy the hostile work environment, Bedini instead told her that she had “better not be [at USJ] come the fall” and on another occasion said that she “better not f------ be here [the following academic year].”

On June 21, Piscitelli "was summoned to a meeting with [director of human resources Deb] Spencer and Bedini in which she was informed that her employment was terminated effective immediately. After being informed of the termination of her employment, [she] asked if she had done something wrong. Bedini responded, 'No, we’re moving in a new direction.' On the same day of [Piscitelli's] termination, Ingham was promoted to Assistant Athletic Director," according to the lawsuit.

The complete 13-page filing may be found here.