An employee of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs will be able to pursue her civil rights claims against the institution after a federal judge on Tuesday found Whitney Porter credibly alleged that she experienced a gender-based hostile work environment and retaliation.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell agreed Porter had described a pervasive amount of ridicule and insult at UCCS that altered her working conditions and created an abusive environment. At the same time, Dominguez Braswell acknowledged that not all of Porter’s allegations had “clear and obvious ties” to her gender.

“Defendants will have ample opportunity to show that Plaintiff’s allegations are false or otherwise unconnected to her gender or human resource department grievances,” she wrote in a March 28 order. “However, based on the allegations before it, the Court cannot say the hostile work environment claim warrants dismissal.”

Neither Porter’s attorney nor a spokesperson for UCCS responded immediately to a request for comment.

Porter’s lawsuit centered around one person, Venkateshwar “Venkat” Reddy, who was dean of the UCCS College of Business before becoming the campus chancellor in 2017. The alleged discrimination Porter faced occurred largely while she worked in the College of Business under Reddy’s leadership.

Beginning around 2016, while Porter was the assistant director of graduate programs, she allegedly experienced the following:

? Reddy’s office monitored her arrivals and departures daily, but not those of other workers

? Porter was the only person required to obtain a medical note to take even one sick day

? Porter was threatened with termination if she did not come to work while “violently ill”

? She was the only person required to work in the office when the air conditioning was broken and temperatures exceeded 90 degrees

? The school assigned her extra work without a corresponding pay increase, which was not the case with other employees

? Porter received a poor performance review for the first time after she complained about her treatment

Those actions “demonstrate the inequitable, unjust, and discriminatory practice of dismissing and undervaluing Plaintiff’s contributions as a woman,” wrote Porter’s attorney, Chet Kern.

Porter filed grievances with the human resources department, but there was allegedly no corrective action. Instead, Porter reportedly felt pressured to resign from the College of Business and she moved to a different school within UCCS.

In 2019, she applied for a job in the registrar’s office, which resulted in an offer. But reportedly, Reddy, who was then the chancellor, refused to sign off on hiring Porter. UCCS posted the same job opening a year later, for which Porter applied and was rejected.

Porter filed a charge of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in February 2021 and followed it up with a federal lawsuit. In it, she alleged violations of Title VII, the civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in employment, plus infringements on her constitutional rights.

The university moved to dismiss the lawsuit, asserting that many of the incidents Porter claimed had violated her rights occurred well before she filed her charge of discrimination. The only claim Porter could pursue, UCCS contended, was her non-hiring in 2020 for the registrar’s office.

“Plaintiff attempts to tie the failure to hire in summer 2020 – in another department of the campus, with no allegations of anyone from the College of Business or Dr. Reddy being involved – to the day-to-day harassment she alleges she was subjected to in the College of Business in 2016-2017,” wrote attorney Hermine Kallman for UCCS.

Dominguez Braswell agreed with the university that certain events in Porter’s timeline were not part of a continuous civil rights violation, but were standalone incidents that now exceeded the statute of limitations.

The magistrate judge further acknowledged it “seems unlikely” that Porter’s treatment in 2016 and 2017 could connect with the one timely claim in her lawsuit, the 2020 non-hiring.

“However, in this case, there is a uniquely identifiable throughline: the alleged hostility from Defendant Reddy,” Dominguez Braswell wrote.

She elaborated that the totality of Porter’s allegations suggested Reddy’s actions put pressure on Porter to quit the College of Business, then he prevented her from working in the registrar’s office. Therefore, Porter’s allegations of a hostile work environment amounted to a viable claim after all.

Dominguez Braswell came to a similar conclusion with Porter’s claim of retaliation. Even though the 2020 non-hiring came years after Porter reported her alleged mistreatment to human resources, it was possible to view UCCS’s failure to hire her as “the logical continuation of an ongoing retaliation campaign,” Dominguez Braswell noted.

Porter’s lawsuit is seeking monetary damages and reinstatement to the job she resigned in 2017 with the College of Business.

The case is Porter v. The Regents of the University of Colorado.