University Wins Anti-Discrimination Suit

Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Friday that Harvard did not violate the state’s antidiscrimination laws in firing an employee on grounds of disorderly conduct for an altercation that resulted from his bipolar disorder.

Michael Mammone, a receptionist for seven years at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, was fired after a Sept. 4, 2002, altercation with his supervisor, Michele Piponidis, in which he refused repeated requests to cease using his personal laptop and then refused to join Piponidis for a meeting in their conference room.

In its 5-1 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) concluded that Mammone’s misconduct proved that his mental illness affected his workplace performance, making him ineligible for the designation of a ‘qualified handicapped person,’ a prerequisite for protection under the discrimination statutes.

Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall recused herself because of ties to Harvard.

Mammone has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder since 1987, and told the Associated Press that the SJC’s decision “kicks workers with mental illness to the curb.”

Mammone, who had, according to the decision, “arrived at work in a brightly colored, traditional East Indian dress and adorned with necklaces, bracelets, and rings,” refused two police officers’ demands that he vacate the premise after his altercation with Piponidis.

Instead, Mammone sat in the middle of the lobby and was forcibly removed by the officers and told not to return. When Mammone returned to the adjoining Harvard Museum of Natural History and had another confrontation with Piponidis, she informed him he would be fired.

“We are pleased with the decision,” wrote John D. Longbrake, a University spokesman, in an e-mail.

The Court ruling also cited Mammone’s ‘abusive, threatening, and sexually derogatory language.’ He called Piponidis “evil” during the first altercation, and, upon his return to the premises after his arraignment, he threatened Piponidis and a human resources representative, saying, “You fucking whack bitches are going down.”

Justice John M. Greaney, the court’s sole dissenter, argued primarily on the grounds that the SJC should have allowed Mammone to present his case to the jury rather than providing its own summary judgment.

“[The jury] might just as likely conclude that the outburst, part and parcel of his paranoid manic state, was intended only as a moral rebuke, and, further, that more sensitive handling of the situation by Piponidis would have averted the crisis altogether,” Greaney wrote in his dissent.

Beginning shortly after his termination, Harvard gave Mammone disability benefits until March 7, 2003, after which his firing became effective, according to the ruling.

Messages seeking comment left at Mammone’s Waltham, Mass., home yesterday evening went unreturned.

Material from the Associated Press was used in the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Benjamin L. Weintraub can be reached at bweintr@fas.harvard.edu.