ELLSWORTH (AP) – A Hancock County Superior Court jury has awarded more than $510,000 in damages to a Seal Harbor woman who claimed that sex discrimination led to her dismissal as a fund-raiser for the Maine Sea Coast Mission.

Ann Schwartz, 45, was fired in 2002 after working for more than two years for the nonprofit society that provides Christian outreach to island residents off the Maine coast.

The Maine Human Rights Commission in 2003 had found reasonable grounds for Schwartz’s claims. After a three-day trial, jurors voted 8-1 Thursday in her favor and awarded damages totaling $510,654. The mission, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, denied that it had done anything improper and said it was considering an appeal.

Schwartz, who was fired with less than a day’s notice, had said that she suffered sex discrimination while working for the Rev. Gary DeLong, the mission’s executive director. She said she hopes the verdict sends a message.

“I think it could be a wake-up call to women who are accepting of sexism in the workplace because they think they have to endure it to keep their jobs,” Schwartz said. “A definite benefit is the message to employers: You shouldn’t fire somebody without having a good reason.”

Schwartz’s initial complaint said she was hired as the mission’s director of development, but “throughout the course of my employment, I was treated differently than similarly situated male employees.”

“Women were excluded from the decision-making process by male committee members, who would wait for the women to leave the committee meetings and then make decisions privately,” she wrote.

Schwartz described during her testimony a Sept. 5, 2002, meeting in which, she said, DeLong spoke to her in a way she found to be inappropriate.

“Gary said that I was being insubordinate and that I should shut up and do what I was told and that no woman has ever spoken to him that way before,” Schwartz testified. “I was stunned.”

Former University of Maine President Fred Hutchinson, president of the mission’s board of directors, said the mission stands behind DeLong. “While we are disappointed in the decision reached in the proceedings, we continue to believe strongly that the Maine Sea Coast Mission did nothing improper in the treatment of Mrs. Schwartz,” Hutchinson said.

“We will therefore be considering the decision to appeal this decision.”

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-06-04-05 1222EDT