Posted on April 30, 2024

NYC to Pay $2.1m in Race Discrimination Settlement With Three Educators

Susan Edelman, New York Post, April 27, 2024

The city will pay a total $2.1 million to three white Department of Education executives demoted under ex-Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and replaced by less-qualified people of color, they charged.

Lois Herrera, Jaye Murray and Laura Feijoo – who will receive $700,000 each – reached a settlement three months after a judge ruled they “offer evidence of race-based discrimination in Carranza’s DOE,” paving the way for a June trial.

“This landmark case is a resounding affirmation that discrimination of any form should not be tolerated in educational institutions, regardless of the race of those negatively impacted,” their lawyer Davida Perry told The Post.

Filed five years ago, the suit alleged Carranza waged a crusade against “toxic whiteness” in the city Department of Education.

Herrera, who had a Harvard master’s degree, was working successfully as CEO of the Office of Safety and Youth Development when one of Carranza’s deputy chancellors abruptly stripped her title and replaced her with a “less-qualified” Black man, Mark Rampersant, who held a GED, the suit alleged.

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Murray, then executive director of the Office of Counseling Support Programs, was told to report to Rampersant, the first in a series of demotions.

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Feijoo — then-Senior Supervising Superintendent who oversaw 46 DOE superintendents – was replaced by an underling, Cheryl Watson-Harris, who is Black and, at the time, lacked the required NY licensing.

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