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.
Herrera retired in January 2023.
Murray, then executive director of the Office of Counseling Support Programs, was told to report to Rampersant, the first in a series of demotions.
She remains on the DOE payroll, but with sharply reduced duties.
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.
Feijoo left the DOE for another job in November 2019, and Watson-Harris quit in June 2020 for an ill-fated top spot in Georgia.
An internal DOE email written by the DOE’s then-chief operating officer, Ursulina Ramirez, said de Blasio, who appointed Carranza chancellor in 2018, was “fixated on diversity.”
In sworn depositions, both de Blasio and Carranza insisted they wanted to hire the most qualified candidates, but also leaders who “looked like New York City.”
Those picked to replace the three women got the jobs after “a tap on the shoulder,” without the positions being advertised and other candidates interviewed, the suit charged.
Carranza quit the top DOE job in February 2021, and De Blasio left office on Dec. 31, 2021.
Now, the three women “feel justified and vindicated by the resolution of this significant legal battle,” Perry said.
“They hope the light that was shed on the DOE’s policies will help other institutions understand that every individual deserves to be treated with dignity and fairness.”
The city admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.
“The DOE and City are fully committed to fair and inclusive employment practices, and we maintain that these claims lack merit,” a spokesman for the Law Department said. “Nevertheless, settlement of this long standing case was in the best interest of all parties.”
