Two court administrators have filed a whistleblower lawsuit against a New Jersey city for alleged racial and gender discrimination.
NJ.com reports Jacqueline Bland and Debbian Barr are suing the city of Englewood for violating state laws against workplace discrimination and retaliation.
According to the suit, Bland and Barr claim that over the past 10 years they “have never received any merit salary increases when other similarly situated peer employees” have received raises.
The women, who are of Jamaican heritage, claim employees under them have launched attacks based in part on their culture and that city officials, including human resources, allowed it to continue, the suit states.
One of the employees allegedly has “a history of making false accusations” to city officials about both administrators, the suit states. The lawsuit claims the employee is married to an Englewood police officer with an alleged long history of violating the civil rights of others and who is “untouchable in the police department” and city government.
The women claim human resources did nothing to stop employees from discriminating against them because of their Jamaican heritage.
They also claim they were harassed by upper level supervisors for over a year and the city did nothing to stop it.
The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, along with “sanitization” of their personnel records. They also want the city to establish a “color-blind HR Division that adjudicates all claims and complaints without preference to caucasians, or to any one group or race.”
Interim City Manager Jewel Thompson-Chin says these claims “pre-date the commencement of my consulting engagement” with Englewood.