An Ithaca, New York, manufacturing plant just east of scenic Cayuga Lake was for years controlled by a manager who subjected his employees to racist and sexist harassment, firing those who spoke up, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A 14-page federal complaint claims the plant manager at Porous Materials, which predominantly serves the oil and gas industry, created a hostile work environment in which he called some female employees “bitches” and made unwanted sexual advances toward them. He complained about the women “PMS’ing” and said they could not perform “a man’s job,” the suit states.

In one case, the manager told a woman she would need to “come over here and sexually harass me” to be sent home early, according to the lawsuit. In another, he allegedly said an employee was “too fat and disgusting” to have sex with her own husband.

The suit claims that the manager, a former stockroom worker who was promoted to his position in February 2016, “used racial slurs, called foreign-born employees ‘terrorists,’ and told the only black employee that her husband should work in a cotton field with a rope around his neck,’” according to a statement from the EEOC. The manager allegedly told that employee to drink “Kool-Aid” to calm down and then fired her for reporting his remarks.

“The company owner, rather than putting a stop to this, behaved similarly; he called female employees ‘dumb women,’ complained that ‘these women can’t do anything,’ and told a woman she would not be getting a raise because of her sex,” according to a press release issued by the EEOC last week.

“Employers cannot ignore harassment, let alone fire employees who report it,” Jeffrey Burstein, regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District Office, said in the statement. “If employers fail to protect their workers, the EEOC will.”

Such behavior, if proven, would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex- or race-based discrimination. The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 13 but first reported on Monday by the Ithaca Journal.

The company’s founder and CEO, Krishna Gupta, vehemently denied all the suit’s claims in an interview with the Journal. Gupta said the woman who alleged she was ousted over her complaints was instead fired for cause, and that the manager who is accused of making sexist and racist remarks has also been let go. Gupta also told the newspaper he was never informed about the reported harassment from the EEOC before the suit was filed.

The agency is seeking back pay, compensatory, and punitive damages for the victims of harassment and racism, citing their “emotional pain, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life, and humiliation.”

“Businesses may think that permitting sex-, race- and national origin-based harassment in the workplace is acceptable,” said EEOC attorney Daniel Seltzer, in a press release. “It isn’t, and those who do so will be held accountable.”