‘Racist’ dog blamed for denying work at church to black woman

The home of a Catholic priest was the last place LaShundra Allen ever would have expected to be denied work because of her skin color, she said.

Allen, who is black, arrived with her white co-worker the morning of May 3 for what was supposed to be her first day cleaning the Rev. Jacek Kowal’s rectory at the Catholic Church of the Incarnation in Collierville, Tenn. The co-worker from the cleaning company who accompanied her, Emily Weaver, was quitting and came along to introduce Allen as her replacement.

But the women wouldn’t get far. The secretary stopped them, Allen told the Washington Post, and said she would have to go ask Kowal if the new arrangement was OK.

The secretary soon informed them it was actually not OK — because of the priest’s “racist” dog.

“I’m sorry,” Kowal’s secretary said, according to a complaint sent to the Catholic Diocese of Memphis last month. “We are not trying to be rude, but the dog doesn’t like black people.”

Allen said she “didn’t really even have words,” baffled at what she just heard. She was ultimately turned away, and the experience haunted her so much that she felt she could not stay silent. Allen and Weaver sent a racial discrimination complaint to the Diocese of Memphis on July 3, seeking a “settlement and compromise.”

But on Friday, the Diocese of Memphis said in a statement it completed its investigation and found that what happened at the priest’s rectory “simply was not a case of racial discrimination” and that Kowal “did nothing wrong.”

In the church’s version of events, the secretary’s words were, “Father Jacek’s dog is kinda racist” — although in the eyes of the diocese, the statement did not stem from any racial discrimination. The priest and church staff were strictly concerned the dog, a German shepherd named Ceaser, could attack Allen or both women, based in part on a past incident the dog had with an African American person, according to the letter from Bishop David Talley.

Allen’s attorney, Maureen Holland, said she was disappointed in the bishop’s finding. Allen said she feared the diocese was not taking her complaint seriously, especially because the church did not respond for weeks to her letter. Blaming a dog for racism, she said, appeared to mask underlying discrimination.

“I took it to be that he was using (the dog) as an excuse,” Allen said. “Dogs can’t see color. Dogs can only be taught who to be around and who not to be around.”

According to the diocese’s letter, Weaver said she would be happy to put Ceaser in his crate if the secretary was concerned the dog would become aggressive in Allen’s presence. But Kowal insisted putting the dog in the crate would be too dangerous without his supervision, “as he was concerned that they would be at risk of being bitten,” Talley wrote. Talley said Kowal would have had the same fear regardless of any new visitor’s skin color because the dog does not like strangers.

“The staff were aware that years ago the dog had been threatened by a person who happened to be African American, causing the dog to be somewhat more agitated initially around strangers with darker skin, until the dog gets to know them,” Talley wrote. “The replacement employee who was planning to enter the rectory was an African American person the dog had never met.”

Talley said the employees’ interpretation that Kowal was “motivated by a desire not to have an African American housekeeper” was “simply not true.” He had previously employed an African American housekeeper for five years during his last assignment, Talley noted.

Kowal did not respond to requests for comment from the Post, but in a statement to the Commercial Appeal last week, he echoed Talley’s explanation, mentioning the dog’s “bad experience” with an African American person.