WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear a claim by a former Baltimore official, Ronald A. Brown, that Jacqueline F. McLean set out illegally to purge white men from her office after she became city comptroller in late 1991.

McLean was elected comptroller in November 1991 and took office in December. Brown lost his job as administrator of city telephone facilities the next July.

Brown contended in a lawsuit that he lost his job because of an affirmative action program that targeted white men. But lower federal courts rejected his claim, saying no evidence linked a reorganization of the comptroller's office -- and Brown's termination -- to the program.

McLean resigned in a corruption scandal in 1994.