A lawsuit filed by a Black police officer who said she’d endured years of racial and gender discrimination on the job in Hillside has been effectively dismissed through arbitration, the town says.
Qiana Brown first filed suit in 2017, arguing a host of allegations: that white men were promoted over her, she was not given enough time to pump breast milk and a supervisor described her hair as “kinky” and “not conservative.”
And, she found a painting of a rat with her badge number on a bathroom wall at police headquarters and the police department’s union did not accept her membership, Brown claimed.
Brown, a sergeant when she sued – she was promoted to lieutenant in late 2017 – opted for arbitration, and on March 21, the arbitrator, former Superior Court Judge Mark B. Epstein, found “no cause of action.”
Epstein found the town’s lawyers provided legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for their responses to the claims Brown raised, and Brown did not prove prove the town’s actions were motivated by racial or gender discrimination.
“Although (Brown) did present instances of isolated events that were inappropriate and unprofessional, it is my further finding that they did not rise to the level of a hostile environment as defined by case law and all such incidents and events were appropriately investigated and addressed,” Epstein wrote in the decision.
Lawyers for Hillside conceded that Brown has experienced a, “fractious and litigious history” with the department, which she...
Turkish base fake news in Armenia For several days, a video has been circulating on social media claiming that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan allegedly signed a “secret agreement” with EU ...