Harassment Suit Filed Against Headmaster : Charges: John C. Littleford of La Jolla Country Day School says the alleged incidents of sexual harassment “never happened.”

A former receptionist at La Jolla Country Day School has filed a sexual harassment suit against the school and its headmaster, John C. Littleford, who she claims repeatedly touched her, made inappropriate comments and pressured her for a date.

Lisa R. Gordon, now a UC Davis student living in Sacramento, made the allegation in a 10-page lawsuit filed last week in San Diego County Superior Court. She has also begun the process of filing a complaint with the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, officials in the agency’s San Diego office confirmed.

Littleford and other officials for the prestigious La Jolla private school strongly deny the charges. They say Gordon, 21, is a disgruntled former employee who is angry at Littleford because he spurned her romantic advances.

“Never happened,” Littleford, 47, said of the allegations, including Gordon’s contention that he asked to have a sexual relationship with her. “Not in my wildest nightmares could I imagine that the headmaster of an independent school would say that to a member of the staff, whom he barely knew at all.”

When she resigned from the school in June after seven months as receptionist, Gordon sent a three-page letter to the board of trustees, detailing her harassment claims and asking the board to investigate.

Gloria de Aragon Andujar, president of the school’s 18-member board, said she and the other trustees support Littleford unequivocally and last week rejected a settlement offer of $40,000 from Gordon’s attorney.

“There’s no wrongdoing involved. In issues like this, I think a lot of things are subject to interpretation,” said Andujar, who acknowledged that Littleford often compliments the office staff about their appearance and sends them flowers.

But, in her lawsuit and in an interview with The Times, Gordon described an alleged pattern of sexual harassment by the headmaster--who she claims at one point took her into his office to say he “wanted to have a sexual relationship with me.”

“No bones about it. That’s exactly what he said. . . . He did not mince words,” said Gordon, who is now studying political science and working in a private downtown Sacramento dinner club.

Andujar described Littleford, previously headmaster at prominent private schools in Minneapolis and Milwaukee, as a “brilliant visionary” whose appointment in the fall of 1990 was a coup for the La Jolla school and its 900 students, who range in age from preschoolers to high-school seniors. Tuition is $7,740 a year for upper-division students at the nationally known school.

Gordon said this week that she filed the lawsuit, which asks for damages of more than $25,000, because school officials refused to take her charges against Littleford seriously, even after she wrote a detailed letter in June to board members.

“I want to make a statement that this is wrong--that’s all,” Gordon said.

Her story appears supported by another former school employee who worked directly for Littleford. Michele Cass, 35, Littleford’s former administrative assistant, told The Times that the headmaster once confided to her that he wanted to date the former receptionist.

Cass also said that, after five years of working for the school, she quit her position in June partly because of Littleford’s “physical, touchy” behavior, which she said included hugs and sneaking up behind her to plant kisses on her head.

“It really made me cringe, and I told him I didn’t like that,” said Cass. “It’s a bad situation when it is your boss. You want to show him on one hand that you’re uncomfortable with his behavior, but I had a problem showing him I was angry.”

Cass said that, after she resigned, she contacted two board members about her complaints. One excused the behavior, the other “agreed there was a problem,” she said. She declined to give the names of the two board members.

Cass said she never took the matter further because “I want to put this behind me.”

Littleford denied Cass’ charges, saying that she was “neither accurate nor unbiased” in her description of their relationship.

He said that Cass resented him because she supported previous headmaster Timothy Burns, who resigned in 1989 after a controversy surrounding the departure of Sharon Rogers, a popular fourth-grade teacher and wife of Will Rogers III, skipper of the guided-missile cruiser Vincennes.

Fearing a terrorist attack, Burns refused to let Rogers return to work after a homemade bomb destroyed her van one morning, a move that drew criticism even from President Bush.

“While professional, our relationship was never cordial or friendly,” Littleford said of Cass.

In the Gordon lawsuit, the former receptionist alleges that Littleford asked her “repeated intrusive questions,” even during her job interview on Oct. 26, 1990.

Soon after she was hired on Oct. 30, Littleford began paying Gordon compliments on her appearance “and otherwise being overattentive,” the former school employee alleges in her lawsuit.

The headmaster’s advances escalated until he called her into his office on Dec. 12 and directly asked her to have a “sexual relationship with her,” the suit says.

“He was very blunt, very direct about it,” Gordon said in her interview with The Times.

“I just sat there and said, ‘John, we can be friends and that’s all.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you just think about it and get back to me?’ And I left.”

Cass, Littleford’s former assistant, said the headmaster at one point mentioned to her that he would like to date Gordon.

“I know he was attracted to Lisa,” Cass said. “We were talking about dating (her) and I said, ‘First of all, she’s very young and, secondly, she’s an employee.’ After I gave him my opinion, he said, ‘Yes, it’s not right’ ” to mix business with personal matters.

Littleford categorically denied that he pried into Gordon’s personal life either during the job interview or the seven months she was employed. He said he was friendly as he passed Gordon’s desk every morning, and that they often talked about the events leading up to the Persian Gulf War.

“Beyond that, we did not have a social relationship or any other kind of relationship. She would ask me questions periodically. She would seek my advice on a few things. . . . But it was a friendly, cordial, professional relationship.”

Littleford’s version of the Dec. 12 meeting was starkly different from what is alleged in the lawsuit. He said the receptionist walked into his office, closed the door and said, “ ‘Would you be interested in going out with me?’

“And I think I said, ‘That’s very flattering, but that’s an impossible situation. Because, politically, that would be suicidal for me and would probably hurt you . . . ‘ “

According to Gordon’s lawsuit, however, Littleford continued to show her undue attention, especially at a Christmas party held in his downtown La Jolla home.

The lawsuit says that, on Dec. 17, she informed the school’s business manager, Mark L. Marcus, about the unwanted sexual advances. Marcus forced Littleford to apologize, the suit says.

Marcus declined to comment.

Despite that warning, Littleford continued to press Gordon to either go skiing with him in Utah or attend a play in Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit. He allegedly continued his advances by calling her “many times a day to tell her how beautiful she was” and to “touch her hands.”

The lawsuit also says that, on one occasion, Littleford “stuck a Popsicle he was eating into (Gordon’s) face and asked (her) if she wanted to lick it.”

Littleford told The Times that the allegations are untrue and that it was Gordon who suggested an out-of-town date. Littleford said he declined.

In her suit, Gordon said she complained to Marcus again Jan. 25, and Littleford responded this time by writing her a note “stating that they would have only a professional relationship.”

After that, Littleford then began to “harass” Gordon by criticizing her clothes, earrings and hairstyle, saying at one point that she dressed “too young” and would have to purchase a new wardrobe, the suit claims.

Gordon gave notice on May 22 before she left her job at the end of June, the lawsuit says. On June 25, she detailed her allegations against Littleford to school trustees in a three-page letter, a copy of which The Times has obtained.

The former receptionist told The Times she was discouraged when Andujar responded by letter, saying the matter had been referred to the school’s attorney. That’s when she decided to make the settlement demand and, eventually, to file suit, she said.

“First of all, I felt that, when I asked the school to investigate, I expected maybe a phone call, maybe some real heartfelt searching from them,” she said.

“I don’t think they took sexual harassment seriously enough.”