A court has upheld the gender discrimination claims of a female police officer in Connecticut who alleged that the female Chief of Police repeatedly referred to her as “that chick cop.”

The Court held that her complaint adequately pleaded gender discrimination by alleging that the Police Chief repeatedly referred to her as “that chick cop,” but never used “sexually-degrading words to characterize male officers.”  Further, whereas two male police officers were “promptly” notified of complaints filed against them and put on paid administrative leave while the complaints were investigated, the Department waited 6 months before notifying plaintiff of a complaint against her and that she was therefore required to continue working without paid administrative leave.   Finally, the Police Chief questioned plaintiff’s eligibility for time off but never questioned the eligibility of male police officers.

The Court held that in the aggregate, these claims make up at least a plausible adverse employment action:  “These allegations are sufficient to establish an inference of discrimination because evidence of this differential treatment coupled with the use of this gender-based, derogatory description by a police chief to refer to a female officer could connote the chief’s inferior view of Plaintiff in a traditionally male position.”