In Gahfi v. New York City Department of Education, 23-cv-1782 (BMC), 2025 WL 675933 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 28, 2025), the court, inter alia, held that the plaintiff sufficiently alleged a claim of religion-based discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
“At the pleadings stage … a plaintiff must allege that the employer took adverse action against her at least in part for a discriminatory reason.” Vega, 801 F.3d at 87 (citing Littlejohn, 795 F.3d at 310). “An inference of discrimination can arise from circumstances including, but not limited to, ‘the employer’s criticism of the plaintiff’s performance in ethnically degrading terms; … the more favorable treatment of employees not in the protected group; or the sequence of events leading to the plaintiff’s discharge.” Littlejohn, 795 F.3d at 312 (quotation omitted). Plaintiff includes sufficient allegations of discriminatory intent related to DOE’s failure to provide her with an assistant principal based on her pleading that other, non-Hasidic principals received assistant principals.3
Plaintiff alleges that DOE’s denial of tenure and extension of her probationary period were motivated at least in part by discriminatory intent based on (1) Lindsay’s comment that plaintiff needed to “get thick skin and get over herself” in discussing plaintiff’s “religious practices of not shaking hands with men and not being allowed to be in a room alone with a man,” (2) Lindsay’s intentional failure to provide plaintiff with kosher food at meetings and conferences, (3) the fact that plaintiff was treated differently than other similarly situated principals who were not Hasidic (including the fact that plaintiff was not assigned an assistant principal and was ordered to work summer school), and (4) Lindsay’s threat towards plaintiff when she refused to work summer school, even though similarly situated principals who were not Hasidic were not ordered or expected to work summer school. Additionally, plaintiff pleads that Lindsay threatened her with disciplinary action if she did not meet with a male teacher alone, despite plaintiff’s religious practice prohibiting this.
Even though these allegations may not all rise to the level of adverse employment actions in and of themselves, they do evince several instances of disparate treatment of plaintiff by her supervisor based on her religion. Such a “series of instances of disparate treatment in the workplace,” including allegations that plaintiff was “subjected to job requirements and to discipline that was different than employees outside her protected class” are sufficient to “support a plausible inference of intentional discrimination” as to DOE’s extension of plaintiff’s probationary period and denial of tenure. Buon, 65 F.4th at 83-84.
Plaintiff has thus plausibly alleged a Title VII religious discrimination claim based on her disproportionately heavy workload and denial of tenure.
Having reached this conclusion under Title VII, the court held that plaintiff necessarily stated claims for religious discrimination under the “more lenient” New York State and City Human Rights Laws.