Cases & Developments

Opinion granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss.  Plaintiffs, five observant Jewish professors at Kingsborough Community College (Kingsborough) of the City University of New York (CUNY), brought discrimination and retaliation claims against CUNY, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union, the New Caucus of the PSC, and multiple individual professors.  Plaintiffs alleged that the professor defendants subjected them to a hostile work environment, conspired to exclude Jewish applicants from a New Caucus-aligned group at Kingsborough called the Progressive Faculty Caucus, and sought their removal from their jobs.  They further alleged that CUNY did not take adequate corrective action.  In denying CUNY’s motion to dismiss the hostile work environment claims, the court found plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that CUNY’s response to the allegations was inconsistent with findings documented in an investigative report completed by outside counsel.  Turning to the retaliation claims, the court also found that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that critical statements by the Kingsborough President and a delay of over a year in replacing Kingsborough’s chief diversity officer were reasonably likely to deter a person from engaging in protected activity.