Brentwood school board leader accused of discrimination

New civil-rights complaints charge the board president of Long Island's biggest school district with repeatedly using racial and ethnic slurs to describe employees he wanted fired.

The complaints, filed Tuesday with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Manhattan, also allege that Brentwood board president George Talley and other white officials from 2007 on repeatedly favored whites over minorities in hiring, while blocking subordinates from disciplining white workers and students accused of misconduct.

Talley, who was preparing Tuesday for a relative's funeral, did not comment on the charges during a phone conversation with a Newsday reporter. But a district spokesman, Rick Belyea, denied any discrimination.

"Obviously, we're not happy with some of the things that were said," Belyea added. "Because in Brentwood, there's no color issue. We all get along here."

The discrimination complaints were filed by five Brentwood employees past and present. The 16,000-student district is one of the Island's most diverse - home to the region's biggest concentration of Hispanic students.

Carlos M. Sanchez, 53, the district's former director of school safety, alleges in his complaint that he was pressured by Talley and another board member in 2007 to fire two security guards, both of whom were Hispanic.

On one occasion when Sanchez refused, he states that Talley told him, "I am going to fire you, you -----," employing an epithet applied to Hispanics.

Another complainant, Frank Scimeca, 54, who still works as Brentwood's assistant plant facilities coordinator, also reports that the board president uttered slurs.

Scimeca's complaint mentions that Talley himself pushed in 2007 for promoting a Hispanic school employee who had worked on Talley's board election campaign.

Despite the suggestion that Brentwood's hiring may be governed more by politics than by race, attorneys for the plaintiffs contend that evidence of discrimination is convincing.

"Statistics don't lie," said Lenard Leeds, senior partner for the Carle Place law firm of Leeds Morelli & Brown, which is handling the case.

The latest state statistics show that Brentwood's student enrollment is 71 percent Hispanic, 17 percent black and 10 percent white. The district's professional workforce, including teachers, is 77.6 percent white, 17.3 percent Hispanic and 3.8 percent black.

Belyea said the district has recently stepped up minority hiring, including the appointment of two principals - one black, one Hispanic. "We'd like the numbers to be higher on the minority side, of course," he said.