Ruling Backs Postal Worker in Bias Claim : Courts: Postmaster violated sex-discrimination laws in demoting woman who organized feminist conference, judge says.

Orange County Postmaster Hector G. Godinez illegally retaliated against an employee after she embarrassed the Postal Service by organizing a feminist conference in 1982, a federal judge has decided.

Rachael V. Santos of Hacienda Heights was demoted to a lower-paying job three weeks after the conference, which featured feminist leader Gloria Steinem as the keynote speaker.

In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. found that Godinez violated federal sex-discrimination laws when he removed Santos from her temporary position as women’s program coordinator in Santa Ana in October, 1982.

Godinez, who supervises postal operations for all of Orange County and parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties, demoted Santos so soon after the conference that “inference of a retaliatory motive is justified,” Hatter wrote.

The ruling, issued in December, entitles Santos to collect legal fees, which she estimates have exceeded $30,000, plus two years’ worth of the difference between the salary of her Santa Ana job and the position to which she was demoted in the Alhambra post office.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Donna J. Everett, who defended the government, said the amount of the back pay had not yet been calculated. But Gordon Deapen, field director of human resources for the postal service in Santa Ana, said it comes to about $1,500.

Santos, who has been on disability leave, said she is happy that the judge agreed that she had been the target of retaliation. “I’m just so glad he saw what I was saying,” she said. “(Postal officials) kept telling me I was all wrong. I finally feel vindicated.”

Despite the judge’s findings, Godinez said Tuesday that he was “not guilty of anything.” He pointed out that Santos’ appointment as women’s program coordinator was only a temporary promotion and said that her return to the Alhambra post office was within his discretion.

But Hatter said the move was a “reprisal” against Santos for organizing the conference.

Local postal officials had approved the choice of Steinem as the featured speaker but came under fire from their superiors in Washington once Steinem’s remarks were publicized in the news media. Steinem urged the 850 conferees at the Anaheim Marriott to agitate for their rights and “get together in troublemaking meetings.”

Postal officials in Santa Ana told Santos her temporary promotion was being terminated after only four months because the woman who originally held the job was returning. But the woman never did return.

Santos had also claimed that when the job of women’s program coordinator became vacant in 1984, Godinez did not select her because she had a pending claim against him with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Santos argued that that amounted to illegal discrimination, but Hatter rejected that argument, saying Godinez was entitled to choose someone else because he believed that Santos had been “insubordinate” earlier by refusing to surrender files pertaining to the feminist conference.

Santos is appealing that portion of the ruling.

Everett said the U.S. attorney’s office had not yet decided whether to appeal the portion it lost.