FACTS MADE SIMPLE
You did change tune on NYCHA repairs You did hire tainted schools chancellor AND we have new details on his lawsuit
THE SAN FRANCISCO school district settled a sex discrimination lawsuit involving incoming city schools chancellor Richard Carranza for $75,000, the Daily News has learned — but Mayor de Blasio said he doesn’t buy the allegations against his schools pick.
In a 2015 suit, longtime San Francisco educator Veronica Chavez said Carranza ruined her career after she called him out for flirting at a conference with another woman.
Her complaint said Carranza, 51, victimized her as part of a series of moves he made to snub women employees when he was superintendent there in 2013.
De Blasio said he doesn’t believe the charges made by Chavez, but the school district paid tens of thousands dollars to make her suit go away.
After days of questioning, San Francisco spokeswoman Gentle Blythe acknowledged “the district paid $75,000 in the settlement with Ms. Chavez.” Blythe wouldn’t say if Carranza was referenced in other suits brought against the district or provide his disciplinary history there.
De Blasio appointed Carranza to run the nation’s largest district Monday after his first choice backed out of the job at the last minute on live television on March 1.
Critics have said the suit in San Francisco raises huge red flags about de Blasio’s choice for chancellor in the era of #MeToo, and when the city Education Department is facing federal complaints for its handling of sexual assaults in schools.
But the mayor defended Carranza in a
Friday appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show and told Lehrer that Carranza told him of the suit himself.
He “also explained that he was not the subject of the lawsuit, and no allegations, no legal action was taken, no disciplinary action, nothing related to him,” de Blasio said.
“And look, I would just remind you don’t believe everything you read in the Daily News,” the mayor added.
His spokesman, Eric Phillips, said later on Twitter that the mayor “didn’t say the DN ‘was wrong.’ He said something reported in the Daily News was baseless.”
According to the suit, which was first reported by The News earlier this week, Chavez, 51, was an assistant superintendent when she and Carranza attended a weekend education conference in Los Angeles in February 2013.
“During this weekend, Chavez observed Carranza, who is a married man, engaging in inappropriate flirtatious conduct with a female colleague from another school district who was not his wife,” the suit said.
When Chavez raised the issue with Carranza, he allegedly took it out on her career. “Carranza retaliated against and subjected Chavez to a hostile work environment,” and passed Chavez over for an executive director job as payback, the suit said.
The San Francisco school district’s lawyer Danielle Houck noted that Carranza wasn’t named as a defendant in the suit.
“There is no evidence to support Ms. Chavez’s claim that former Superintendent Carranza either discriminated or retaliated against Ms. Chavez,” Houk said. “The evidence supported the district’s position that she was not the strongest candidate for the executive director position and that the interview panel selected the most qualified candidate, who was another female.”
Chavez is still working as a bilingual teacher in the district, earning far less than she would had she gotten the job as executive director.
Carranza left San Francisco to become superintendent of the Houston school district the same month the Chavez suit was settled, in August 2016.
He has refused to answer questions about the suit and is still on the job in Houston until he starts as city schools chancellor on April 2.
Houston lawyer Scott Newar, who is litigating an age and racial discrimination suit against the district over events that happened during Carranza’s time there, said his city’s loss is actually its gain.
“Houston had a problem and now New York has our problem,” he said. “I think that New York has not done its homework on Carranza.”
Newar said his client, 83-year-old Bertie Simmons, was pushed out of her job amid charges that she threatened students.
Simmons is a nationally recognized veteran Houston educator who helped the district win a $10 million grant in 2016.
Newar said Carranza is complicit in the efforts to push his client out of her post, though she remains on the district payroll during an investigation of her case.
Houston spokesman Tracy Clemens said the district reassigned Simmons as a result of student allegations that Simmons threatened to have him worked over with a baseball bat as well as other concerns related to student grading practices.
“The district initiated an investigation into these matters,” Clemens said. “Superintendent Carranza is not named in the lawsuit. The district stands by its actions.”
Houston had a problem and now new York has our problem. I think that new York has not done its homework on Carranza. SCOTT NEWAR, HOUSTON LAWYER IN SUIT VS. CARRANZA