NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION AGREE TO PAY $20 MILLION DOLLARS TO SETTLE DISCRIMINATION SUIT
According to the New York Times, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday in China Town that he believed it would be better for the City to settle than to litigate a 2001 New York race discrimination lawsuit filed against the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. The class action lawsuit grew out of a flood of complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1999. Under the $20 million dollar class action settlement, the city did not have to admit wrongdoing and Mayor Bloomberg is happy to put the whole issue behind himself and City, even though the settlement must first be approved by a federal judge.
This original class action race discrimination lawsuit was brought on behalf of 11 Black and Hispanic employees, when those employees alleged that their white counterparts were paid more than them, and that if they complained they were retaliated against by being reassigned to offices a great distance from their homes or assigned to undesirable areas of buildings- like dusty basements. A second, Civil Rights lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in 2002, settled in 2005, called for sweeping changes in the promotions procedures in the parks department.
