Campus Dispute : Courts: Paul Athans charges that UCLA fired him because he is gay and HIV-positive. But the university says he lost his job after taking 2 1/2 months leave without informing his supervisors.

By SCOTT SHIBUYA BROWN

Jan. 12, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Paul Athans only occasionally puts on his black baseball cap, the one with “10th Anniversary Facilities Management” on it. It is a prized possession, even if wearing it triggers a confusing mix of emotions: pride, rage and a growing hopelessness.

“It’s what they left me with,” said Athans, 36, a former steam operating engineer at UCLA. “That’s what I have to show for my 10 years of service.”

Since being dismissed by the university two years ago for what officials say was misconduct and job abandonment, Athans also has a house crammed with paperwork--testament to his battle to win back the job he says he lost because he is gay and has tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

“This is my real ‘Philadelphia,’ ” said Athans, referring to the movie about an HIV-positive attorney who is fired by his employer. “What they did was wrong, any way you slice it.”

Athans’ suit against UCLA is believed to be among the first filed in state court alleging job discrimination on the basis of, among other things, testing positive for HIV. Athans is suing to get his job back and to go on disability and receive medical insurance.

“It’s not a conventional discrimination suit, but it’s one we’re going to see a lot more of,” said David Duchrow, Athans’ attorney. “This is not a case about money.”

Lawyers for UCLA are reluctant to comment on the specifics of Athans’ suit, but they deny that Athans was fired because he is gay or for being HIV-positive. Instead, they say Athans took an unauthorized leave of 2 1/2 months starting in September, 1992, without notifying his superiors of where he was going, or for how long. Athans left without applying for a disability leave from the school, they say, and no one at UCLA discovered he was HIV-positive until he returned.

“You just can’t leave and not have an appropriate excuse,” said attorney Kathryn Janssen, who is representing UCLA. “And that’s what he did.”

Athans, however, said he told his supervisor, that he was going to use accumulated sick leave to visit his parents in his native Greece, where he also intended to seek treatment and get a physician to sign his application for disability. He acknowledges though, that he didn’t tell anyone at UCLA about his condition--saying that he was still “dealing with it”--but he denies that he left his job because of it.

“Why in my right mind would I want to abandon my job, knowing my condition and knowing that I would need medical (insurance)?” he asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

After returning to his West Hollywood home that December, Athans found a letter from UCLA notifying him that he was about to be fired. Although UCLA reviewed Athans’ case again after learning that he is HIV-positive, the university let the dismissal stand, maintaining that Athans hadn’t officially cleared his absence and that it was taken several months after Athans found out he was HIV-positive. Athans was officially let go in April, 1993.

“He may be gay and he may be HIV-positive, but these facts didn’t play a role in his termination,” Janssen said. “He’s flat wrong . . . in his perception.”

To Athans and his attorney, however, the firing was the culmination of longstanding hostility within the facilities management department by some people who knew he was gay and harassed him.

When he was hired in 1981, Athans said, he was forced to transfer to another section to avoid a supervisor who objected to his sexual orientation. Although he said he worked in the department under different supervisors for a decade with no problems, earning two recommendations from them for special recognition, the arrival three years ago of a temporary supervisor, began the chain of events that eventually led to the firing, Athans says. Among other things, Athans charged in his suit that his supervisor played pornographic computer videos at work and showed Athans pictures of nude women. The supervisor, he said, would also page Athans continually to “check up” on him, thereby interfering with his ability to finish his work.

“He was trying to find a way to give me a hard time,” Athans said. “He was trying to fire me.”

But Athans says that it was only after he filed a grievance, which resulted in his supervisor being ordered to undergo sensitivity training, that he became a marked man within the department. The dispute concerning his leave, Athans charges, made it convenient for his superiors to discharge him.

Janssen, however, denied that Athans’ grievance against his supervisor resulted in his being fired and declined to comment on any specific allegations. “He’s absolutely barking up the wrong tree,” she said. “It’s not a relevant issue.”

Although his case has dragged on for almost two years and through two attorneys, Athans won a victory in June when the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board overturned a previous commission ruling and concluded that Athans was not guilty of misconduct on the job, thereby allowing him to receive unemployment insurance (under law, state employees fired for gross misconduct cannot receive jobless benefits).

Athans says he would like the university to live up to its publicly stated commitment to making gays and lesbians feel part of the school community. Had he instead been a professor or other faculty member faced with the same set of circumstances, Athans says, he doubts he would have been fired.

“I’ve always loved this school and I never considered working anywhere else,” said Athans, who worked much of the time in the university’s law school building. “Every inch of this campus is part of my life. I thought this was my home.”