BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- A black court officer has filed a lawsuit alleging a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court officer used a racial slur against her.
Attorney Sophia Hall of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice told WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens she filed a complaint Tuesday on behalf of Associate Court Officer Misty Baker.
"We filed this case because we fundamentally believe that no employee should be subjected to discrimination, in particular a racial slur, and particularly not an employee of the Commonwealth's highest court," Hall said.
Baker, 33, has worked as an Associate Court Officer for nearly a decade. Baker said she learned the SJC's Chief Court Officer called her the N-word at the John Adams Courthouse in Boston.
"My client said that she was heartbroken," Hall said. "Initially she thought that there must have been a mistake, but the incident, the utterance spread so widely throughout the court system."
Baker went to her employers asking that the issue could be looked into--but Hall said that when that didn't get her anywhere, she decided to go to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
The suit, filed against the SJC and the Executive Office of the Trial Court, alleges a toxic racial climate in the Massachusetts Trial Courts.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports