Suit alleging bias in employment practices making way through court

A lawsuit on behalf of current and former corrections officers at the Ulster County Jail who allege they were discriminated against and subjected to a hostile work environment because they are black is still making its way through the court, their attorney said.

“We have completed all discovery and we expect the county to file a motion for summary judgment, which is due at the end of the month,” attorney Nathaniel Charny of Rhinebeck said in an email this past week. “... We will oppose the motion and, perhaps, nine to 12 months from now the court will issue its decision whether the matter will proceed to trial and on what claims.”

The employment discrimination lawsuit was filed Aug. 30, 2016, in federal court for the Northern District of New York on behalf of current Corrections Officers Norman L. James, Tyrone Brodhead, Alphonso A. Lacey and Pamela Lancaster and former Corrections Officer Timothy Ross. It named Ulster County as a defendant, along with county Sheriff Paul VanBlarcum and county jail wardens Jon Becker and Louis T. Russo Sr., all of whom are white.

Russo has retired since the lawsuit’s filing, Charny said.

Charny has said the suit stems from the “race-based glass ceiling” at the jail in which the five black officers were kept from job advancement while their white counterparts were nurtured and promoted.

James has been a corrections officer at the Ulster County Jail since April 1988, while Brodhead has been employed there since June 1999, Lacey since November 1998 and Lancaster since April 2007. Ross was a corrections officer from February 1998 until October 2012.

The 22-page lawsuit states, in part, that since taking office, VanBlarcum has given promotions only to white officers. At the time of the filing, not a single black employee in the Sheriff’s Office, which includes corrections officers, held a rank higher than the entrylevel corrections officer position, the suit states.

Among the allegations in the suit is that black officers are disciplined more harshly than their white counterparts. That includes a black officer who was scrutinized and penalized because of family issues, while a white lieutenant never faced repercussions on the job despite being the subject of several domestic violence calls, the suit alleges.

The suit also says the black officers were passed over for promotions, which instead were given to white officers who generally had less seniority. The suit also says the black officers were denied training they requested and were given few opportunities to participate in preferred assignments.

Additionally, the black officers were witness to more overt racial hostility, the suit says. It says that included other officers at the jail using racial slurs and epithets, including calling one black officer “the jigaboo.”

Charny has said the suit stems from the “racebased glass ceiling” at the jail in which the five black officers were kept from job advancement.