#CUNY president phased out white male staffers for minority women: suit

An ex-security chief at CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College claims that the school president has been systematically phasing out male white employees replacing them with minority women, new court papers show.

James Capozzi, an Italian-American, claims he was unjustly booted from his job as Director of Public Safety at the Manhattan Beach campus in 2019 — and that he was only the tip of the iceberg, according to a discrimination suit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

The 58-year-old from Queens earned a $143,805 salary at the school in 2019, according to See Through NY.

College president Claudia Schrader — who earned $232,704 in 2019, according to See Through NY — told Capozzi, through his supervisor, that she wanted to go in a “different direction” when she had him fired just shy of his fifth year on the job, the court papers from Tuesday claim.

And Capozzi would have been eligible for a bonus if he’d made it through the fifth year at the school, the suit says.

Schrader replaced Capozzi with a black lieutenant who he says was less qualified, less experienced and less educated than Capozzi — whose qualifications included a law degree and 30 years in law enforcement, the court documents claim.

Capozzi alleges that since Schrader was hired in 2018, she has filled four VP positions — previously held by white people who either resigned or were fired — with minority women, the suit says.

And before he was ousted, Capozzi was told by his boss that Schrader wanted to him to hire a new lieutenant “and that the lieutenant must be a female,” the court documents allege.

The school, “discriminated against [Capozzi] … by denying him equal terms and conditions of employment, including but not limited [to] taking advantage of [him], because of his race,” the court papers charge.

Capozzi told The Post that he doesn’t have any issue with minorities being hired to top positions.

“But it’s interesting that, for lack of a better term, every single position that [Schrader] happens to be filling in these top posts happen to be minorities of all the people that could have applied on a level playing field,” Capozzi said.

“Could one? Yes. Could two? Yes. Could three, yes. But minorities always landing at the top spots? Those are pretty good Vegas odds,” he added.

“It’s not legal to make decisions based on race, creed, color, the whole gamut,” Capozzi said.

The school was hit with a prior discrimination lawsuit in 2016 over claims that a high-ranking CUNY administrator reduced the number of Jewish people on staff and once secretly complained about “too many Jews” on the faculty at Kingsborough Community College. That case is still pending.

“Observant Jewish and transgender professors have previously accused Kingsborough of discrimination,” Capozzi’s lawyer, Mark Shirian told The Post. “Mr. Capozzi’s allegations demonstrate that discrimination is still rampant at Kingsborough and has not gone away.”

Capozzi is suing for unspecified damages.

A spokesman with the city Law Department said, “We’ll review the case and respond as we proceed in the litigation.”

CUNY said that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”

Schrader did not immediately respond to a request for comment.