SALEM — The Oregon Department of Corrections has paid $350,000 to a former manager who alleged the department eliminated his job after he helped prisoners and workers pursue discrimination claims against the agency.

Gary Sims of Salem managed the Department of Corrections’ diversity and inclusion office. He previously worked as a religious services administrator and a human resources manager.

In 2013, he became head of agency’s Diversity and Inclusion Office, where he said he was expected to address racial disparities among other inequities within the prison system.

In his 2019 lawsuit, he said the office was intended to provide workers and prisoners with “an avenue to internally raise concerns of discrimination and to correct those disparities.”

According to his lawsuit, Sims “went beyond simply shuttling employee and inmate complaints of discrimination” through the prison bureaucracy. He claimed he helped staff and inmates advance those claims and advocated on their behalf.

He alleges his efforts didn’t go over well with corrections brass — including Director Colette Peters, who in 2017, he said, told him “in no uncertain terms to cease” his advocacy and reminded him his job was to forward complaints to human resources.

Later that year, he said he was told the Diversity and Inclusion Office would be closed and those duties would be taken on by another division. He said the decision was prompted by budget concerns. Sims alleges a human resources manager told him he had “nothing coming” from the agency and he should look elsewhere for work.

Sims, who works as a supervisor for spiritual care at Salem Hospital and clinics, said his salary at the time he left was about $125,000.

In a recent interview, Sims said the elimination of his job effectively blacklisted him from other state jobs. He called the settlement of his lawsuit “vindication.”

Christopher Lundberg, the Portland lawyer who represented Sims, said the settlement was “a fair resolution.”

“I’m just really happy for Mr. Sims to be able to resolve this and move forward,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.