Five years ago, Lois Hererra, Jaye Murray, and Laura Feijoo filed a lawsuit alleging that the city's DOE had discriminated against them on the basis of their race, as Blaze News previously reported. The lawsuit originally sought $90 million in damages.
Hererra, a Harvard alumna who had become executive director of the Office of Safety and Youth Development following decades at the agency, had been demoted in favor of Mark Rampersant, a black man with a GED. Murray, a former executive director of the Office of Counseling Support Programs, was demoted three rungs and had to report to Rampersant at one point. Finally, Feijoo, a former senior supervising superintendent who once supervised all other DOE superintendents was passed over for an opening at deputy chancellor by one of her black subordinates, Cheryl Watson-Harris, who did not even have the license necessary for the position at the time she was hired.
Those staffing changes occurred under the leadership of former Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, a lackey of Democrat former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was "fixated on diversity," according to an internal DOE email written by then-chief operating officer Ursulina Ramirez.
According to the lawsuit, Carranza threatened the job of any "Caucasian DOE employees" who dared to question his "equity platform." "Get on board ... or leave," he allegedly warned them.