While not great for the city's coffers, Mayor Bloomberg's two-and-a-half terms have been good—financially if not emotionally—for discriminated city employees. The Times today has a long piece on discrimination lawsuits in Bloomberg's New York and the results, culled from FOIL requests, are very interesting. During Bloomberg's first two terms "the number of lawsuits by employees accusing the city of discrimination was 12 percent higher than" they were under Giuliani's watch and during that time "the city settled over 400 employee discrimination cases, for more than $69 million." At least one man managed to get two different discrimination settlements out of the city!

Christopher Castro and his brother were part of a lawsuit in 1999 that alleged a hostile environment for minority officers, including disparate and more severe discipline. That case won a settlement of $26.8 million in 2004. The pair then sued the city again when they were rejected for jobs at the Sanitation Department, allegedly because of their involvement in the previous suit. Last month a jury awarded Christopher Castro $400,000.

“Some people may think that this is a surprise, given Bloomberg’s reputation for presiding over a quote calmer city unquote,” Craig Gurian, executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York, told the Gray Lady. “But there has always been a tremendous disparity between perception and reality, and the reality is that this administration is just not serious about civil rights enforcement.”

Not that the city agrees with that statement! The city's corporation counsel Michael A. Cardozo argues to the paper that the number of complaints is actually quite small (about 100 discrimination suits a year filed out of 280,000 city employees), that the number of city employees is larger now that it was for most of Giuliani's reign, and that the increase in claims reflects "an ailing economy, as well as a growing willingness among employees to speak out and seek legal redress—as encouraged by the administration—without fear of retribution."

Unfortunately, that only goes so far, as the city seems to be behind the national curve. While the number of complaints against the city, which generally precede lawsuits, peaked in 2007 ("at more than 330, roughly double what it was during each of the last three years of the Giuliani administration"), the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for example, "has filed fewer lawsuits in federal district courts, nationwide, since 2004."

Of course, on some level it shouldn't be that surprising that the Bloomberg administration would have trouble focusing on preventing discrimination rather than just dealing with examples of it in court. Before he decided he wanted to mayor Michael Bloomberg ran Bloomberg LP, a massive company with some serious discrimination charges still pending against it.