Find Ex-Parks Boss Ran Unit Like a Fiefdom;
Judge: Civil Service, Union Rules Were Often Ignored

By RICHARD STEIER

There is insufficient evidence, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin ruled late last month, to go to trial on claims by past and present minority employees of the Parks Department that the agency between 1995 and 2003 created a hostile work environment toward people of color, or that it had a practice of assigning employees and allocating funds based on race.

IN THE POWER BROKER'S IMAGE: Henry Stern, who began his career in the Parks Department under the legendarily autocratic Robert Moses, micromanaged the agency during the Giuliani administration to the point of personally deciding on whom to promote and at what salary for even lower-level supervisory jobs, according to the judge hearing a lawsuit accusing him of discrimination against minority employees.

In dismissing those portions of the lawsuit, however, Judge Chin also found that evidence before him might convince a jury "that Parks engaged in widespread discrimination against African-American and Hispanic employees, in terms of promotions and compensation, and that Parks engaged in widespread retaliation against those who opposed what they believed to be discriminatory practices."

Stern High-Handed

As he described it in his decision, regardless of whether the 11 named plaintiffs in the class-action suit can prove that they were the victims of race-based job bias, the Parks Department under Henry Stern's leadership during the final seven years of the Giuliani administration was run like a private fief rather than a city agency.

Decisions on promotions and even on hiring were often left to Mr. Stern's discretion, as were salaries. His conclusions might be seen by a jury as signs of bias, or as the arbitrary judgments of someone who believed his power was complete, the decision indicated. What was not at work, Judge Chin implied in a voluminous ruling that permitted a major portion of the suit to proceed to trial, was any sort of logical consistency or adherence to civil service's basic tenets.

Asked to respond to the aspects of the finding that did not pertain to alleged racial bias, Mr. Stern replied Oct. 4, "The Corporation Counsel does not allow us to discuss the case." A spokeswoman for Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo declined to comment on those matters, citing the pending litigation.

Sued by Justice Dept.

Mr. Stern was cited by the Justice Department in 2002 - following an earlier finding of bias by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - for alleged discrimination in promotions throughout his tenure, which ended after Rudy Giuliani stepped down as Mayor at the end of 2001.

He claimed that he had doubled the number of black managers at the agency, but the lawsuit brought by the Justice Department noted that virtually no white employees in Parks reported to black supervisors, and that whites, who comprised less than half the work force, received 70 percent of the promotions.

That occurred, according to the lawsuit, because of a separate promotion track created for recent graduates of top colleges who were hired under a program known as "Class Of," and the agency's "systematically failing to provide a fair and open selection process for promotions."

Call Pass-Overs Racial

The plaintiffs in the case before Judge Chin allege that Mr. Stern relied heavily on "Class Of" to fill executive positions with employees who were just a year or two removed from college because of a racial bias against more-experienced minority staffers who had proven their capabilities in positions that normally would have been springboards to the managerial jobs.

That claim is one of the matters Judge Chin said will be left for a jury to decide. His decision makes clear, however, that key positions in Parks were filled in direct violation of civil service law, existing union contracts, and an affirmative action plan that had been implemented during the Dinkins administration and remained in effect under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Although a union agreement governing working conditions in Parks required that provisional promotions be made based on seniority, that requirement was routinely ignored. Throughout Mr. Stern's tenure as Parks Commissioner under Mr. Giuliani (he previously held the same job for the last seven years of Edward I. Koch's mayoralty), Judge Chin noted, no civil service exams were held for most key promotional titles at the agency, allowing the jobs to be filled by employees serving provisionally.

Successor Resumed Tests

The current Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, who was given the job shortly after Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, has held competitive exams for most of those titles, something union officials say has had the effect of improving minority representation in jobs above the entry level.

Although blacks and Latinos comprised more than 52 percent of the department's employees, Judge Chin said evidence had been presented that they received just 29 percent of the promotions within the agency over the period between mid-1995 and August 2004.

An expert witness retained by the plaintiffs found that minority candidates for promotions were given "statistically significant lower interview scores than Caucasians," Judge Chin stated. There was also one case in which "a Caucasian applicant with the lowest interview scores was selected over an African-American applicant with the highest score."

No Set Policy

During the period at issue in the lawsuit, the judge observed, Parks failed to keep records of the ratings that were given to those interviewed for promotions, and failed to establish a policy determining what weight the interviews would be given in choosing between candidates.

In essence, he concluded that Mr. Stern played an unusually active role in who was promoted and what their salaries should be, and often determined what civil service title promotees would be given based on the salary he decided for a job.

Although the existing city affirmative action plan and union contracts required that Parks post notices of all available positions at least two weeks before they were filled, two agency managers testified during depositions given in the case that Parks "regularly failed to post vacancies prior to the filing of this lawsuit," Judge Chin noted. He added that one of those employees in the agency's personnel unit testified that despite the requirements, he routinely asked supervisors whether he had "the go-ahead" to post particular openings.

Interviews a Facade

"Even when a position was posted, interviews were not always held," Judge Chin found. "Sometimes an interview would serve only as a formality; an employee previously selected for a position would interview while other employees would not be given the opportunity to interview."

He cited one case in which a black employee requested a transfer to fill a vacancy at the Asser Levy Center on Manhattan's East Side, and was passed over for a white colleague who had never expressed interest in the job until a supervisor called to offer it to her.

Paula Loving, the black woman who had been the Citywide Coordinator of the agency's Work Experience Program, was not allowed to apply for a new position as Director of WEP, which was given to a less-senior white employee. Judge Chin noted that Ms. Loving had been described by a supervisor as "smart, ambitious, reliable, a good communicator, and a very good worker." But the Director position was never posted, preventing her from applying for it, and it was filled initially by a white employee with significantly less experience in the WEP program. The job subsequently went to a white employee with less than a year on the job who had been hired right out of college.

Salary Disparities

Testimony in depositions established that when black employees were promoted, they received lesser salaries than white colleagues with the same job responsibilities, with the black Center Manager of the East 54th St. Recreation Center receiving $8,000 less than her white counterpart at Asser Levy. The black manager, Elizabeth Rogers, was eventually replaced by a white colleague who was paid more than $3,000 more.

One black employee, Robert Wright, upon being promoted to Parks Recreation Manager actually had his pay cut by $6,500. This was in striking contrast, Judge Chin noted, to white colleagues who got pay raises along with their promotions to that title. The cut left Mr. Wright, who is the lead plaintiff in the suit, earning $6,000 to $8,000 less than white colleagues.

Judge Chin's decision also noted that Mr. Stern knew of a black employee's complaint that a supervisor at a Parks facility on Randalls Island for several years hung a noose as a Halloween decoration, but was not aware of whether the agency investigated the matter.

Not Worth Probing?

"Further," Judge Chin wrote, referring to a deposition given by the former Commissioner for the case, "while he understood that nooses could be offensive to African-Americans, Stern did not order any investigation of the nooses on Parks property though he considered them 'childish' and 'silly.'''

Despite that instance and allegations of blatantly racist comments made by ranking agency managers, Judge Chin dismissed the portion of the lawsuit alleging that a hostile work environment based on race had existed because insufficient evidence was presented of "a systemic culture of harassment or that racial harassment was standard operating procedure at Parks." He noted that several of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit "denied being subjected to a hostile work environment."

The judge found sufficient evidence, however, of retaliation against minority employees who complained about agency policies or their being denied a promotion - including two cases where those who objected were reassigned to basement offices - to warrant that portion of the suit going to trial. He stated that there appeared to be "lack of receptiveness to discrimination complaints, not just from individual Parks supervisors, but an attitude flowing from the top down."