Bryan O'Neil says in his $1.25 million discrimination lawsuit that administrators at Middlesex Community College in Bedford fired him because he is a man and because he wanted to set up a spiritual organization on campus, the Boston Globe reported Thursday.
"I was totally humiliated," O'Neil said, "and my reputation was destroyed."
O'Neil, who began working at the college in 1987, said his troubles began in 1996 when he and some colleagues began planning to create a religious group for students of different faiths on campus.
O'Neil, a Presbyterian church elder, said his supervisors urged him to abandon the plans because having a religious group on the state college campus would violate what they claim is a constitutional "separation of church and state" – though no such phrase exists in the Constitution.
"They have groups for 'alternative lifestyles,' " O'Neil said. "If they have other groups for other opinions, then they should have groups for spirituality."
Under pressure from administrators, O'Neil said he abandoned plans for the religious group.
In his suit, O'Neil alleges administrators were also upset that he complained that male colleagues were being fired and replaced with women. He said those new hires did not have doctorates, as he did, but were being paid more than he was.
After he submitted a memo backing up his claims in 1997, O'Neil said he was fired without explanation.
After the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed his complaint last year, O'Neil filed a similar suit in court seeing $1.25 million in compensation and asking for his job back.
There was no comment from the college, but a lawyer for the school said it stood by its decision to fire O'Neil.
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