Former Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Joyce Bell Limbrick filed a lawsuit against USC Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court for race and gender harassment, discrimination, retaliation, the failure to prevent such and defamation. The lawsuit centers around former Athletic Director Mike Bohn and the alleged harassment that occurred under his management from 2019 to 2023. 

In her filing, Bell Limbrick claimed Bohn racially and physically harassed her, including an incident when Bohn allegedly punched her in the arm during a University volleyball match. Bell Limbrick also wrote that her career was “derailed” by Bohn stripping her of responsibilities, specifically when he prevented her from interviewing candidates for volleyball and basketball coaches. 

Bell Limbrick’s attorney, J. Bernard Alexander III, wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan that Bell Limbrick loved working in the University but dealt with “racially charged” remarks after Bohn’s hiring which made her feel “uncomfortable and undervalued.” 

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After Bohn’s conduct “became physical” and he “isolated” Bell Limbrick from her coworkers, she complained to other officials, the statement read. At the time, Bell Limbrick was the highest-ranking woman and Black administrator on the department’s executive team, according to the L.A. Times.

“She was already vulnerable as the only Black woman on the team,” Alexander wrote. “Ultimately, rather than support Joyce, the university retaliated by replacing her.”

In a statement to the Daily Trojan, the University wrote, “we have just received the complaint and will respond once we have reviewed it fully.” 

When USC hired Bohn in 2019 — during Bell Limbrick’s ninth year working at the University — he was simultaneously under investigation by the University of Cincinnati, his former employer, for gender and racial discrimination, the lawsuit read. 

Bell Limbrick wrote in her filings the University had asked an outside law firm, Cozen O’Connor, to address her complaints and investigate Bohn before USC’s transition to the Big Ten. Four months after Bohn’s May 2023 resignation, Bell Limbrick was fired for a “pattern of poor performance,” according to the lawsuit.

Bell Limbrick is seeking an unspecified amount of damages for economic losses, the deprivation of her civil rights and any distress she had undergone during the ordeal, the lawsuit read.