With four police officers charged with violating the civil rights of Latino community members, through harassment, intimidation and physical violence, East Haven police chief Len Gallo has stepped down effective last Friday. The Courant reports that Mayor Joe Maturo, who famously said he "might have tacos" as a way to reach out to the Latino community, is forming a search committee for a replacement and called Gallo's resignation an "unselfish act." Well, is it really unselfish when Gallo is "an unnamed co-conspirator in last week's federal indictment"? more ›

M. Slavin & Sons, the Brownsville-based fish distributor that was slapped with a massive federal lawsuit accusing them of subjecting black employees to a torrent of racist, sexual harassment in 2009 has finally settled, to the tune of $900,000. more ›

For the third time in five years, B&H Photo and Video is being sued by employees who say the company has denied them promotions because of race or gender. Bronx residents Luis Santana and Carlos Marchand filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the huge retailer of denying them promotions and raises because they are Hispanic, the Daily News reports. And their lawyer says he'll make it a class action lawsuit if more people come forward (which, considering B&H's track record, is a definite possibility). more ›

A cook at the Roger Smith Hotel in Midtown is suing the boutique inn for $35 million dollars after two employees dressed up as Ku Klux Klan members and taunted him in two separate incidents. Julius Jones, who is black, states in court documents obtained by the Daily News that a painter allegedly approached him last year donning a "pure white cone-shaped article on his head," and said, "Hey, look at me. I am the Ku Klux Klan." more ›

Besides the absence of baby pigeons, one of life's great mysteries is that in many cases you need to be gainfully employed so that someone else will hire you. No one likes a layabout, especially human resource departments who would rather not see that CRITICAL gap in your LinkedIn profile. But Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer tells the Daily News that such discrimination "is an outrageous bias that has no place in New York," and says he will lobby city council and Albany for a bill banning the practice. more ›

A new lawsuit claims that the NYPD let Hispanic cops languish. Former detective Joseph Rivera, who worked the auto crimes division for over ten year is suing the NYPD for only promoting a single Latino cop to detective in the unit since 1997. more ›

A group of Chinese employees who were fired from swank Midtown French-Vietnamese restaurant Le Colonial are suing their former employer for discrimination and retaliation, alleging that their bosses forced them into a variety of unsavory work conditions. more ›

Starbucks is settling a discrimination lawsuit for $75,000 with a Texas woman who was fired because of her short stature due to dwarfism. Elsa Sallard claimed in an EEOC filing that she offered to use a stool or stepladder to work at the counter, but was "ignored." Reuters reports that later that same day, the manager fired her because "she would pose a 'danger' to customers and employees." more ›

A federal judge has thrown out the class action lawsuit accusing Bloomberg LP of discriminating against women. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that the financial and media service firm owned by Mayor Bloomberg engaged in a "a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing the pay of female employees after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave," but Judge Loretta Preska wrote today that there wasn't enough evidence, "'J'accuse!' is not enough in court. Evidence is required." more ›

Testimony during a special bench trial to determine methods to improve minority recruiting at the FDNY has detailed numerous instances of racism, one occurring a short time after the events of September 11. Captain Paul Washington testified yesterday that several months after the attacks, a bulletin for a memorial service for fallen black firefighters was posted at the Ladder 131 station in Red Hook. The flyer was defaced with the words "What about the white guys?" and the names of black celebrities such as "Gary Coleman, Fat Albert, Tupac Shakur," and "Buckwheat," the Daily News reports. more ›

In a city as big as New York, discrimination suits are a dime a dozen. But every once in a while one pops up that causes a person to stop and go "huh." This is one of those cases. Meet Ciro Rosselli, a 29-year-old from Queens who is suing his former employer, McKinsey & Co., because his coworkers allegedly couldn't handle the fact that an Italian goy might wear a yarmulke. more ›

A former NBC studio technician has filed a lawsuit against the network, claiming that co-workers hatefully insulted his Native American heritage by displaying a stereotypical Indian doll on a noose and calling it his daughter. As you can see from this photo, the doll was wearing a sign identifying it as "Baby Wells," and the ex-employee, Faruq "Peter" Wells, says a co-worker threw the doll at him, saying, "Here's your long-lost daughter!" more ›

A group of black firefighters are back in federal court this week for the next stage in the long-running lawsuit against the FDNY, which they accuse of discriminatory hiring practices. Last year, a judge blocked the FDNY from hiring recruits because he found the FDNY's previous three recruitment exams discriminated against nonwhites. The trial's current phase started off with a bang yesterday, when the plaintiffs submitted a sworn deposition by FDNY official Patricia Kavaler, who testified in 2008 about what she perceived as shady, nepotistic "back room" hiring practices that enabled white firefighter candidates to get hired despite troubling criminal records. more ›

Flatiron bar and lounge 230 Fifth (you may recall its rooftop bar as the host of Kobayashi's controversial solo hotdog eating contest on July 4) is at the center of a $500 million racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a black man from Texas. more ›

Was it the way he ate his cannoli in the cafeteria? A Long Island substitute teacher has filed a federal discrimination complaint after he claims he was fired because of a rumor that "he was a member of the witness-relocation program." The Post reports that Alexander Piccirillo feels he was unfairly singled out by the Quogue school district "due to his Italian ethnicity and age." more ›

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! more ›

A Bronx teacher is suing the city's Department of Education, claiming that the principal of her school forced her to perform tasks that caused the stillbirth of her baby. Rachel Wolff, a tenured teacher at PS 246, believes that principal Beverly Miller "contributed to an environment where having a successful pregnancy became exceedingly difficult," her lawyer tells the Post. Because Wolff's pregnancy was considered "high risk," chores that involved "climbing flights of stairs, hauling heavy furniture, and cleaning the library" negatively affected Wolff's ability to bear a healthy child. The NIH classifies factors for high risk pregnancies as "young or old maternal age, being underweight or overweight, having problems in previous pregnancies," and having "pre-existing health conditions" like HIV, high blood pressure or diabetes. more ›

In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court tossed out a massive sex-discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, stating that the 1.5 million women who would have been affected by the case may not proceed as a class. The Court ruled that the plaintiff's lawyers, who would have succeeded in trying the largest class action suit in the country's history, "improperly sued under a part of the class action rules that was not primarily concerned with monetary claims, the Times reports. In the related claim of whether or not the plaintiffs proved that "there are questions of law or fact common to the class," the court split along ideological lines 5-4, with Scalia's opinion [pdf] for the majority stating that the plaintiffs failed to prove "a common answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored." (Italics his.) more ›

A man who has been in state prison twice for at least three counts of robbery really wants to work at Red Lobster. So much so that he's suing the seafood chain to hire him, alleging that the manager at the Times Square branch rejected his application because of his criminal history which is discrimination. And the Post's experts "say he has a case." more ›

Starbucks is in hot coffee today for two reasons: an allegation that a manager at a Long Island Starbucks berated a gay worker for his sexual orientation, and news that the chain's milk distributor plans to drop Jamaica, Queens-based Elmhurst Dairy and go with a non-union dairy conglomerate in Texas. The bias allegation stems from an incident witnessed by a customer at a Starbucks in Centereach, Long Island overheard a female manager allegedly forcing an employee, Jeffrey Warren, to resign because he is gay. In a blog post that has since gone viral and attracted widespread media attention, the witness writes: more ›

A former Brooklyn Botanic Gardens employee has filed a suit alleging race and age discrimination in federal court. 47-year-old Anthony Quarless, who worked there for 28 years and was the BBG's head of security, claims that he was pressured to hire a white subordinate in favor of an equally qualified black applicant, was directed to investigate crimes committed by blacks but not whites, and was forced to punish a black employee differently than a white one, The Post reports. more ›

A Filipino housekeeper who applied to work in the Upper East Side home of billionaire industrialist Leonard Blavatnik was allegedly turned down for the job because of her nationality. After spending a trial day working in the house cleaning the fireplace and vacuuming the floors, the woman, 55-year-old Esther Winkley, never heard back about the position. After a few weeks the headhunter who set her up with the job inquired with the Blavatnik's bulter, the magnificently named Wilfredo Balmaceda, who tersely replied, "No Philippines, thanks," in an email obtained by the Daily News. more ›

Waiter Mohamed Kotbi, who has worked at the Waldorf-Astoria since 1984, recently filed a religious and racial discrimination suit against the hotel for making him go by names like "John" so as not to "scare" the guests. And apparently Osama bin Laden's death has just made things worse. He tells the Observer that on Monday one of his coworkers said, "Oh, I heard they got your brother." When he asked for clarification, the coworker said, "Your boss, bin Laden!" For the record, Kotbi's brother is an NYPD officer. more ›

A waiter at the Waldorf-Astoria is claiming the hotel made him go by a different name, because apparently "John" is a lot less frightening than "Mohamed." Moroccan-born Mohamed Kotbi has worked for the hotel since 1984, but said on September 13th, 2001, he was given a nametag to wear that said "John." He claims hotel management told him, "We don’t want to scare our guests." Whereas with "John" he'll just be associated with the likes of John Wilkes Booth and John Wayne Gacy. more ›

Two years ago, Mayor Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg LP, was sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for "a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing the pay of female employees after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave" because of things like former CEO Lex Fenwick allegedly saying, "I'm not having any pregnant bitches work for me." While the discrimination allegedly occurred after he became mayor, Bloomberg himself was deposed in 2009 because he does own the company. Now details from the deposition have been released, and the mayor is described as "patronizing," "sarcastic," "unsympathetic" and irritable as well as "snippy" and a "real charmer." more ›

New Yorkers are oh-so-close to getting 15 foot trampolines for $300 a Wal-Mart at the Gateway II development site in Brooklyn. But the Daily News reports that nitpicking over the city's $35 million dollar appraisal of the land has slowed the agreement between the developer, Related, and the quaint little store that has carefully and courteously charmed this great nation. Don't these gadflies know that we need cheap oil drums of Strawberry Whoppers NOW? more ›

Joseph McCarthy's Rep. Peter King's hearing on "Muslim radicalization" began with the moving testimony of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), one of two Muslims in Congress. Ellison broke down during his moving testimony in which he described the sacrifice of Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a Muslim and first-responder who perished on September 11, 2001 and was later the subject of unfounded rumors that he conspired with the hijackers. more ›

In December, FDNY electrician Gregory Seabrook (a black man) filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights, saying that the FDNY overlooks minority electricians for overtime. And on Thursday, he arrived to his Brooklyn FDNY locker to find a noose inside. Unfortunately, this sounds all too familiar. more ›