Man Sues Female Bosses for Abuse : Workplace: Anthony Ervin Smith’s lawsuit alleges he was the victim of sexual harassment and racial discrimination. ‘It was very emasculating,’ he says.

An African American man has accused his two former female employers of sexual harassment and racial discrimination, alleging the pair repeatedly abused him with epithets, a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court contends.

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Anthony Ervin Smith of Costa Mesa is suing Exclusive Investigations Inc. of Santa Ana and its owner, Sherry Howard, and manager, Marilyn Farley, for creating what the suit described as a hostile work environment that forced Smith to leave his $10-an-hour position as an investigator with the firm, said court documents filed Wednesday.

Howard said Friday that she had not seen the lawsuit and referred questions to her attorney, Robert H. Swensen. Swensen and Farley could not be reached for comment.

Smith, 31, contends in his lawsuit that his employers ridiculed him with names such as “Long Dong Silver,” a character in pornographic movies who was mentioned in the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Clarence Thomas in the U.S. Senate--and with disparaging remarks such as, “The best man for the job is a woman.”

Smith, who worked at the firm from May, 1991, to August, 1992, is seeking compensation for lost wages and damages for emotional distress, the lawsuit said.

“It was very emasculating,” Smith, who was attending law school at the time, said Friday. “The only thing that kept me there was I had too many bills to even count. They knew that and they knew they had me. . . . I basically had to sit and take it.”

The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which filed the lawsuit on Smith’s behalf, is pursuing the case because it found Smith’s complaint had “merit,” said Victor E. Salazar, the department’s attorney. Salazar said sexual harassment complaints filed by men against women are not unusual.

“While perhaps the public perception is that it’s only male on female, our experience is that it happens the other way also,” he said, declining to comment on specifics of Smith’s case.

Smith also contended that written jokes of a sexual nature were distributed in the office and that Howard showed semi-nude photos of herself to male employees, court documents said.

Smith, who has since been hired by an Orange County business management firm, contended the intolerable work atmosphere caused him pain and suffering and a loss of self-esteem, the lawsuit said.

Smith said the stress of the workplace caused him to lose 20 pounds.

“I was obviously devastated,” he said, adding that he was reduced to part-time hours at the firm before finally quitting.