Postell v. Rochester City School District

136 F. Supp. 3d 492, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137727, 2015 WL 5882287
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. New York
DecidedOctober 8, 2015
DocketNo. 11-CV-6550L
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 136 F. Supp. 3d 492 (Postell v. Rochester City School District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Postell v. Rochester City School District, 136 F. Supp. 3d 492, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137727, 2015 WL 5882287 (W.D.N.Y. 2015).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

DAVID G. LARIMER, District Judge.

Plaintiff Barbara Postell (“Postell”), a former employee of the Rochester City School District (the “District”), brings this action against the District, Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard, and Richard Smith, former Principal of John Marshall High School, alleging that the defendants subjected her to discrimination and retaliation in violation of her constitutional right to equal protection, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, and that the District maintained a pattern or practice whereby her constitutional rights were violated.

Discovery is now complete, and the defendants have moved for summary judgment dismissing Postell’s claims. (Dkt. # 18). For the reasons that follow, that motion is granted in part, and denied in part.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The undisputed facts are these. Plaintiff is an African-American woman who [495]*495was employed by the District from 1974 until her retirement in July 2010. Originally hired as an English teacher, she began working as a school counselor in 1984, and by 1999, was serving as a school counselor for John Marshall High School.

In the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year, Richard Smith1 became the principal of John Marshall High School. At that time, there were five counselors working at John Marshall High School, of which plaintiff was the only African-American. Shortly after he arrived, Smith relocated a number of administrators and counselors within the building to different offices, ostensibly to place them closer to the students they served. Plaintiff was moved from her private office in. the Counselors’ Suite to a different office space, Room 242, a former special education classroom to which an interior partition had been added, dividing .it into three spaces. Plaintiff was required to share Room 242 with John Marshall High School Assistant Principal Jason Muhammad (“Muhammad”), and his administrative assistant, Gail Mitchell. It appears undisputed that plaintiff, Muhammad, and. Mitchell were the only three African-American administrative staff members in the entire building.

After her relocation to Room 242, plaintiff found that the office space was crowded and insufficiently outfitted, having no working telephones or computers, and no conference space suitable for conducting meetings with students. It took three months, and an express demand by Muhammad, for telephones and computers to be installed in Room 242. In contrast, the other [Caucasian] school counselors allegedly retained, or were moved into, their own individual offices for 2008-2009, with working phones, computers, and separate conference spaces.

On July 22, 2009, plaintiff and the other counselors were provided with a memorandum informing them that John Marshall High was redesigning and realigning student/teacher clusters and reassigning caseloads to counselors. Plaintiff was reassigned from the position she had occupied for some seventeen years counseling high school students (grades 10-12), to a position working solely with middle school students (grades 7-9), an act which plaintiff characterizes as a demotion, as working with high school students is more prestigious, complex and significant than working with middle-schoolers. The other Caucasian school counselors were permitted to keep their high school assignments, and a Caucasian, middle school counselor, Sally Altobello, was givqn plaintiff’s former caseload of high schoolers. The memorandum also informed counselors that due to the fact that the “House” assignments related to particular rooms and areas of the building, counselor offices might again be moved in order to place counselors near the students to whom they were assigned.

Shortly thereafter, plaintiff was notified that for the 2009-2010 school year she would be reassigned to an office space on the second floor, Room 249. Room 249 was a windowless former storage room beneath the auditorium balcony that had previously been used during the 2008-2009 school year by Caucasian school social worker Jerry Cheplowitz;, and before that, prior to Smith’s arrival at John Marshall High, by Persha Carlston, a Caucasian [496]*496school counselor. Room 209, the hallway office formerly occupied by Sally Altobello (the counselor whose caseload had been traded with plaintiffs), which was located closer than Room 249 to her former (and plaintiffs new) caseload of students, was apparently left vacant.

Plaintiff requested a meeting, with Smith and Assistant Principal Laurel Avery-De-Toy, to discuss her concerns about her new office location and change in caseload. The meeting took place August 19, 2009. Plaintiff asked why her caseload had been reassigned. Although it appears undisputed that that time, plaintiff was the most senior and experienced high school counselor at Marshall High, and that.her caseloads had boasted the largest number of students graduating with Regents diplomas, Smith stated that he felt that Altobel-lo could serve plaintiffs caseload of high school students better than plaintiff had, and accused plaintiff of being “quite defiant when we ask you for things.” Plaintiff also expressed concerns over her new office — specifically, with the fact that it had no space in which to do small group counseling — and observed that, “I, the only black counselor, am [being placed] in a storage area.” Plaintiff' stated that she felt that the changes to her office and/or caseload were racially discriminatory, and pointed out that Smith had assigned all three of the ■ undesirable storage rooms under the balcony (Room 249 and two similar rooms) to people of color; ■ plaintiff, African-American City police • officer Weeks, and Hispanic employee Cynthia Bermudez. For reasons not explained in the record, Smith later reassigned Bermu-. dez to a different office, so that the room beneath the balcony to which she had originally been assigned could be used to store computers, but he declined to reassign plaintiff. Avery-DeToy wrote a letter to plaintiff after the meeting, accusing her of having acted “hostile,” but neither Smith nor Avery-DeToy investigated plaintiffs claim of discrimination, or otherwise took any purposeful action in response to it.

In September 2009, shortly after the school year began, plaintiff complained to Smith that she was experiencing health problems, including headaches, eye problems and respiratory difficulties, as the result of her' assignment to Room 249. Smith again declined to reassign plaintiff to a different office.

In or around August 2009, plaintiff had filed a complaint about the conditions in Room 249 with the OSHA/PESH Division of the New York State Department of Labor. On September 8 and 11, 2009, plaintiff filed two union grievances contending that she had been subjected to discrimination in the form of unfavorable teaching assignments, unfavorable teaching facilities, and the withholding of her salary (plaintiff claimed she should have been compensated for certain “summer workdays” and was 'not), and explaining that her office assignment was causing her health ■ problems which were interfering with her ability to do her job. The grievances were initially denied, and because plaintiff retired before a Level II hearing could be scheduled, she opted to drop the matter. •

On September 9, 2009, an OSHA inspector, accompanied by the District’s Coordinator of Safety, Susan Wheatcraft, inspected Room 249.

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136 F. Supp. 3d 492, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137727, 2015 WL 5882287, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/postell-v-rochester-city-school-district-nywd-2015.