A Black former legal professional with the New York Metropolis Division of Buildings filed a federal lawsuit this week towards the company alleging racial discrimination and retaliation after she complained a few male supervisor who she says habitually made racial slurs and sexist remarks, and bodily accosted her.
Shelia Cockburn claims that quickly after she started working as an legal professional for the buildings division in April of 2019, she noticed her supervisor Eric Dalloo frequently making “discriminatory remarks with heavy racial overtones.”
Dalloo would typically converse to Cockburn and different Black staff “in Ebonics — an American dialectic vernacular type of English used predominantly by African Individuals,” or in a Caribbean accent.
He additionally allegedly used racial epithets within the office, typically utilizing the phrase “n-gga” at work, and deploying a Caribbean accent to greet Black staff. Cockburn says she heard Dalloo inform a Black worker, “Hey you my n-gga, we cool, how are you?”
Her criticism particulars 4 different events in June and July of 2019 when Dalloo allegedly used the N-word.
Dalloo additionally referred to the division’s Bronx workplace as “ghetto” whereas referring to the Manhattan workplace as “subtle,” Cockburn claims.
She says Dalloo frequently and overtly mentioned his private life at work, together with his ingesting habits, well being points and intercourse life, and talked about “how he ‘loved’ mistreating his girlfriend by speaking all the way down to her however felt it was okay as a result of ‘she preferred it.’”
Cockburn says she and different feminine attorneys have been offended by such gender-based and misogynistic feedback, together with the racial slurs. Over time, her “seen discomfort with and non-participation in Dalloo’s overly discriminatory habits” led him to mistreat her, she alleges.
Beginning in July of 2019, Dalloo ceased the same old observe of assigning new attorneys within the division to shadow her, she says, and likewise instructed one other feminine legal professional to not assign instances to her. When that legal professional did so on one significantly busy workday, she says Dalloo grabbed a casefile out of her fingers in an aggressive method and yelled, “No!” after which reassigned the case to a different legal professional.
Over the subsequent a number of months, Dalloo not solely verbally harassed her but additionally “escalated his discriminatory habits to incorporate undesirable and offensive bodily contact,” the criticism says.
At a listening to earlier than a decide on the company’s Brooklyn workplace in September of 2019, Cockburn says Dalloo was offended that she had agreed to dismiss a case, and “aggressively grabbed” her forearm as she exited the courtroom and tried to tug her into the hallway, yelling “exterior,” making a public spectacle. He then proceeded to admonish her for dismissing the case, although his personal supervisor had instructed him earlier that day to take action, she claims.
Cockburn says she was “shocked and humiliated by Dalloo’s bodily assault and repugnant show of unprofessionalism,” particularly because the trade happened in entrance of lots of her authorized colleagues.
A number of days later, Cockburn complained to her supervisor Joseph Casciano, a Stage 2 (L2) company legal professional relating to Dalloo’s therapy of her.
Casciano advised her that he, too had observed Diallo’s disparate therapy of her and additional confided that Dalloo “appeared to have ‘issues coping with girls of colour,’” she alleges. He vowed to speak to different supervisors about Dalloo.
Round this time, Cockburn says she realized that a number of conferences have been held by supervisory attorneys to handle Dalloo’s habits, and that some staff had filed discrimination complaints towards him.
Cockburn herself attended a gathering in December of 2019 the place she and her colleagues mentioned ongoing complaints about Dalloo with their supervisor Jamell Isidor, an L3 legal professional. They spoke of their “discomfort relating to his use of derogatory language in the direction of girls and folks of colour, in addition to his intercourse life and usually belligerent habits,” she says.
The identical day, company legal professional Sohani Khan filed a criticism with the company’s inner EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] workplace that included Dalloo’s alleged boasting about mistreatment of his girlfriend, jokes he made in regards to the pure hair of Black girls, and his behavior of calling the Bronx workplace “ghetto,” the criticism says.
In January of 2020, at a follow-up assembly with Isodor, Cockburn says she and different constructing division staff mentioned Dalloo’s disparate therapy of girls and the way his habits “makes all the workplace workers uncomfortable and upset.”
Operating parallel to her unwelcome interactions with Dalloo, says Cockburn, have been her efforts to pursue a promotion to the next degree legal professional place.
In June of 2019 Cockburn utilized for a open job as an L3 legal professional, which might have raised her wage from $67,523 to $97,500. As a result of she was an formidable, seasoned legal professional with 13 years of authorized expertise, together with litigation expertise valued by the division, she hoped her expertise would “enable her the honest alternative to rise via the ranks” on the company.
Her six-month probation analysis was optimistic, she claims, together with the best rankings for job efficiency and different indications that she “prioritizes work; anticipates issues; completes duties in a well timed method …and [works] successfully with minimal supervision.”
Cockburn didn’t get the job, and was advised by a supervisor that was as a result of she was comparatively new to the division, however that new jobs can be posted sooner or later.
Afterwards, she says Dalloo “grew more and more hostile in the direction of her and acted upset that she had utilized for the place.”
In February of 2020 she utilized for one more promotion to 2 open L2 legal professional positions that may pay $88,500 per 12 months. Simply previous to her first interview, she says she requested a supervisor who had been concerned with the rent why she had been rejected beforehand.
He advised her once more that she wanted extra expertise, and likewise that she “didn’t shake his hand, linger after the interview to talk along with her interviewers, and that the interviewers didn’t discover her personable.”
Cockburn was not chosen for both job. Her criticism notes that at this level she had been rejected 3 times for promotional alternatives and have become “considered one of few staff apart from latest regulation graduates or unbarred attorneys who had not been promoted to an L2 place.”
She alleges that three L1 staff who began working after her have been promoted to L2 positions, even with lower than three months of expertise on the job. In the meantime, she had been working for the buildings division for a 12 months and at that time had 14 years of expertise.
At that time, the criticism says, “she understood her employer’s patent refusal to advertise her to be retaliation in response to her opposition to Dalloo’s discriminatory and harassing habits” and her reviews of it to her supervising attorneys.
Cockburn subsequently filed complaints of discrimination and retaliation with New York Metropolis’s Inner Affairs and Self-discipline Division in addition to with the New York State Division of Human Rights and the U.S. Equal Alternative Fee.
Her complaints allege that the “overarching tradition” on the Manhattan workplace “underpins” and “perpetuates” the type discriminatory habits that she claims Dalloo displayed.
She additional claims that defendants, the town of New York and the Division of Buildings, failed to advertise her “regardless of her years of substantive expertise in administrative regulation and litigation, whereas attorneys with considerably much less expertise and tenure have been promoted over her, lots of whom have been males or white.”
Cockburn asserts that she was refused the promotions based mostly solely on her intercourse/gender and her race in retaliation for her complaints of discrimination and retaliation. Consequently, she says she “felt and feels humiliated, degraded, victimized, embarrassed and emotionally distressed.”
Cockburn resigned from the buildings division in December of 2022.
As of mid-2024, she was employed by the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Joint Workplace of Vitality and Transportation as an engineer engaged on authorities efforts to impress the automotive business and to advance zero-emission transportation. Moreover her authorized expertise, Cockburn has a background as knowledgeable engineer and knowledge scientist, based on her LinkedIn web page and different tech business sources.
Her wage on the DOE was listed as $136,035 by GovSalaries.com, a non-public authorities wage knowledge aggregator.
Eric Dalloo was nonetheless employed with the New York Metropolis Division of Buildings as an company legal professional as of 2024, incomes a wage of $133,828, based on the federal government wage website.
In November of 2024, the EEOC issued a letter notifying Cockburn of her proper to sue the town and the division.
Her criticism filed within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York on January 22 claims violations of state and federal legal guidelines towards discrimination on the idea of race and intercourse, and retaliation as a result of her opposition to the division’s illegal employment practices.
She seeks a jury trial to find out damages for misplaced wages and advantages in addition to compensatory and punitive damages for psychological, emotional and bodily harm and misery and harm to her fame, in addition to authorized prices.
The defendants have 21 days, or till Feb. 11, to reply her criticism.
“The Division of Buildings rejects any type of discrimination towards staff,” stated Andrew Rudansky, press secretary for the division, in an emailed assertion to Atlanta Black Star. “We’ll assessment the lawsuit.”
A spokesman for the New York Metropolis Regulation Division declined to remark whereas the litigation is pending.
