The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission levied a $150,000 fine on First Student to settle a suit hinging upon alleged Civil Rights violations disputed by the company that a supervisor and another manager covered up sexual harassment and retaliation complaints filed by four female employees.

The case originated out of Los Angeles and involved a male supervisor who allegedly sexually harassed three drivers and an HR assistant. The EEOC charged that the supervisor made constant explicit remarks about the womens' body parts and the sexual acts he wanted to perform on them and that the harassment turned physical when the supervisor exposed himself, grabbed the breasts of one of the bus drivers and rubbed his private parts on her.

The EEOC also charged that a male manager covered up the harassment by failing to correct the situation, disciplining one of the victims and transferring another in retaliation.  EEOC added that the harassing supervisor cut another bus driver's hours upon refusal of his advances and promised extra hours to female employees who might acquiesce.

Three of the victims felt forced to resign as a result of the ongoing harassment. A spokesperson for the EEOC in Los Angeles confirmed that the $150,000 will be awarded to the four victims.

"As noted in the consent decree entered into by First Student and the EEOC, the First Student settlement of the matter was a resolution of a disputed claim and there was no finding that First Student violated any federal employment law. First Student denies that it violated any employment laws and its decision to enter into the settlement is in no way an admission of any type of violation," the company said in a statement.

The EEOC filed suit against First Student in September 2009 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (EEOC v. First Student, Inc., Case No. CV 09-7102 RVBKx ) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. Both parties entered into a consent decree valid through 2012 that requires First Student to hire an outside EEO consultant to "revamp the company's policies, complaint procedures, investigations and training of its employees on sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation."

The company must also require supervisors to report such complaints to the human resources department within 24 hours of receipt and create a centralized tracking system for those complaints. The decree covers First Student locations in the California counties of Los Angeles and Orange, and EEOC said it will monitor compliance.

"Last year, retaliation charges became the number one type of complaint that the EEOC received," said Olophius Perry, district director for the EEOC's Los Angeles District Office. "The increase signals a widespread problem wherein employers seem to choose retribution over working toward eliminating the sources of discrimination in the workplace. Employers must understand that workers have the right to complain, and it is illegal to retaliate against those that do."