By Robert Gavin
Times Union
ALBANY — A longtime Schenectady County jail officer is suing the county and sheriff’s department for at least $1.1 million, charging she was repeatedly denied promotions and retaliated against because she is black and a woman.
Tanya Hull, a correction officer at the downtown Schenectady lock-up since 2002, contends county officials violated federal civil rights law in denying her promotions to sergeant five times over a period of 18 months starting in August 2013, according to a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Albany.
“The department has had a long pattern of race and gender discrimination against African-Americans and women that work at the Schenectady County jail,” stated a complaint, filed Oct. 20 by her Hudson-based attorney, Philip Wellner. “The department’s repeated failures to promote Ms. Hull were improper because they were based on her race and gender.”
The suit said each time Hull was passed over, the job went to a Caucasian male who had less seniority than Hull did and scored the same or lower than she did on promotional exams.
The Schenectady woman first applied for the promotion on Aug. 1, 2012. After her interview, the suit said, Hull was lauded by County Sheriff Dominic Dagostino and the jail superintendent, James Barrett, among others, for having one of the best interviews ever by an applicant. But she contends she was rejected after an Aug. 4, 2012, incident at the jail was fabricated. That day, she said, she brought in a bottle of wine as a birthday gift for a nurse. She says the bottle rolled off a chair and broke but the safety of the staff and inmates was never at risk.
She was written up by a sergeant, the suit contends, who has shown a dislike toward African-Americans and who “definitely did not want Ms. Hull promoted to correction sergeant.” She was accused of inappropriate behavior, which she argued was retaliation for complaining about the sergeant’s behavior.
She was passed over for the promotion.
“Despite the convenient excuse of a disciplinary report just days after Ms. Hull’s interview, the fact remains that the department has never promoted an African-American woman from corrections officer to the rank of sergeant — despite the fact that it employs numerous African-American women as corrections officers. And in the past several decades, the department has only promoted two African-American men to the rank of sergeant.”
The suit said after the second time Hull was passed over, she filed a complaint with the Schenectady County Department of Affirmative Action. The suit said Miriam Cajuste, the county’s affirmative action manager, spoke to Dagostino, but he “accused Cajuste of being Ms. Hull’s friend and “putting her up to it.”
Schenectady County Attorney Chris Gardner said Friday the county had not officially received the lawsuit yet.
“She certainly has a right to file a lawsuit but the sheriff believes he had a sound non-discriminatory basis for not promoting her based upon the personnel issues,” he told the Times Union.
Hull, who has complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, contends she has suffered mental anguish, emotional and physical distress, lost wages and other economic loss. She seeks at least $1 million in punitive damages and $100,000 in compensatory damages.