Judge Gary Sharpe
In the winter of 2006, after prior employment by Ithaca’s public works department, Santanawho is Hispanicbecame housing inspector in that city’s Building Department. Radke is its commissioner. Santana alleged disparate treatment and a hostile work environment. His employment was terminated, in September 2010, in part for "ignoring code violations" while the same or similar ignorance by white inspectors went undisciplined. An arbitrator found Santana "terminated for just cause." The court only partly dismissed Santana’s second amended complaint asserting breach of Title VII, 42 USC §§1981 and 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law and Chapters 55 and 215 of Ithaca’s municipal code (IMC). All claims against Radke in her official capacity were dismissed as redundant and Santana’s claims of gender-based discrimination under the IMC were found devoid of a factual basis. However, taken together, Santana’s allegations that he was assigned a greater caseload than his white colleagues, provided less resources with which to complete his work, reprimanded and terminated under unequal disciplinary standards and subjected to racially charged language by Radke were sufficient to give rise to an inference of discrimination.
