The civil suit against the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services and Kate Walsh, the state’s former health secretary alleges racial discrimination, retaliation, coercion, intimidation, and threats. Other named defendants are Christopher Harding, the agency’s chief of staff, and Sonia Bryan, director of human resources.

A spokesperson for HHS said Wednesday that the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.

Walsh did not respond to a request for comment. Walsh left HHS in July 2025.

Chen was appointed to lead elder affairs during the Charlie Baker administration. Turnover in top executive positions isn’t unusual when a new administration begins, but the suit notes that the only other HHS department or office head removed near the start of Healey’s administration, Mary Truong, who led the Office for Refugees and Immigrants, was also Asian.

Truong, who stayed with ORI in a subordinate position for several months, said in an interview Wednesday she did feel mistreated but was not certain that her race played any role. She noted that her interactions with Walsh were generally positive and HHS leadership never questioned her performance, saying only the migrant crisis in Massachusetts at the time meant ORI required leadership with more experience with issues related to homelessness.

“I feel so bad for her,” Truong said of Chen. “She was very outspoken and she was respected for her position and she was hard working.”

Chen emigrated to the United States from Taiwan in 1971. The lawsuit noted she still recalled being called racial slurs after being bused to a predominantly white neighborhood in 1974.

Before leading elder affairs, she worked as an assistant commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, served as president and trustee of the New England College of Optometry and New England Eye Institute, and president and chief executive of the biotech companies Circe Biomedical and Marathon Biopharmaceuticals. Chen was paid $146,623 last year, according to state records.

The lawsuit detailed how Chen’s deteriorating situation at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services began with a meeting that sparked concerns about discrimination and ended with Chen’s dismissal, despite efforts to meet Walsh’s performance standards.

The lawsuit lays out the sequence of events.

In a November 2023 meeting, Walsh raised serious concerns about Chen, saying she had excellent academic credentials but lacked sufficient leadership qualities for a job that was “too big” for her, criticisms the suit claims echo stereotypes about people of Asian descent. Walsh listed concerns about Chen’s performance, including elder affairs’ worker turnover and staffing, criticisms from former employees, and negative feedback from a legislator. Chen felt many of the criticisms were misplaced or inaccurate, but she agreed to professional coaching with the understanding that completing it successfully could allow her to keep her job.

The suit noted that meeting happened shortly after Walsh and Chen attended an event at a senior center in Boston’s Chinatown where Chen spoke Cantonese and Mandarin and was warmly received.

Through the first months of 2024, HHS executives assured Chen that she would be given the opportunity to show improvement, and that requiring coaching was not a disciplinary act.

It concerned Chen, though, that she was subjected to a comprehensive performance review, something no other HHS department head had received at that time, the suit states.

Still, Chen received assurances from Harding, the chief of staff, that if Walsh wanted her gone, she would have fired her in November 2023.

The coaching ended in April 2024 with a roadmap for improvement, which included benchmarks for Chen to meet. Shortly after, though, Walsh told Chen she was being let go.

In the month that followed, Chen attempted to get an explanation for why she was not given a chance to meet the standards in the improvement plan. She wrote a letter to Walsh stating that she felt she was “torn down” for being an Asian woman in a position of leadership, and noted a lack of direct communication and clear planning.

“When we talked in November, you should have been direct about your plan,” Chen wrote, according to a passage from the letter included in the lawsuit. “Instead, you were vague and presented mixed messages and questioned my competence and leadership.”

Chen was shocked when the secretary abruptly altered one of the terms of departure Chen expected at a meeting in May.

Chen left the elder affairs job on June 1, 2024.

The suit states HHS has also made it difficult for Chen to obtain public records requested for her defense, something subject to a second lawsuit from Chen.

The state’s elder affairs office, now called the Executive Office of Aging and Independence, serves roughly 1.7 million seniors, according to the most recent annual report, and is now led by Robin Lipson. Its services are in growing demand as Massachusetts’ population ages. The agency contracts with 24 regional Aging Services Access Points, nonprofits that offer services including meal delivery and home care. The office also oversees assisted-living facilities, home care, and supports people caring for elderly relatives.

Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.