Courthouse News Service: NY High School Principal Channels Eric Cartman
MANHATTAN (CN) - A high school principal’s alleged grudge against observant Jews may leave the New York City Department of Education liable, a federal judge ruled.
The School for Community Research and Learning in the Bronx hired Peter Weiss for a five-year probationary term as assistant to principal William Mulqueen in 2004.
All was well when Mulqueen viewed Weiss as a “pork-eating Jew,” according to the complaint. But Weiss says he quickly lost his job after becoming observant.
Mulqueen is not named as a defendant to the complaint, which alleges claims solely against the Education Department.
Early in his tenure, Weiss said that he learned that swastikas had been scrawled twice on classroom blackboards, and Mulqueen “laughed” off the incidents rather than investigate them.
According to the complaint, Mulqueen regularly complained about the “mannerisms” of the school’s Jewish employees, who were friends with Weiss.
Mulqueen allegedly criticized a programmer who used Yiddish expressions such as “gai gezunter heit,” or “go be well,” and for not working on Jewish holidays.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain summarized Mulqueen’s alleged slurs against Weiss in a decision that paves the way to trial.
“At some point during the 2005-2006 school year, Mulqueen observed plaintiff eating a sandwich with pork in it and referred to plaintiff as a ‘pork-eating Jew,” the 25-page order states. “Mulqueen repeated the comment ‘several’ times during the year. Also, in the context regarding the Jewish New Year, Mulqueen reportedly asked plaintiff why he needed to ‘get right with God’ when he had ‘all of the money in the basement.”