By Lee Landor

Note: This article and its accompanying photos and videos originally appeared on LIHerald.com on December 12, 2011. This content is the rightful property of Richner Communications, Inc.]

This article is seventh in a series of nine written throughout the course of a year as part of an investigative series, which won first place for best in-depth series in the New York Press Association’s 2011 Better Newspaper Contest. Read the previous and next articles.

“It is not hard to figure out that you are being discriminated against when your supervisor calls you a nigger and routinely reminds you that you are a black woman.” So opens the statement in a lawsuit brought against the Malverne Union Free School District by three black employees alleging racial discrimination.

Betsy Benedith, a former Malverne High School assistant principal whom the district let go in June despite student protests, has accused Principal James Brown, who is African American, of treating white employees more favorably in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety that favoring blacks might create.

Sherwyn Besson, formerly a full-time business teacher at the high school, claims he was subjected to increasing discrimination, resulting in the loss of his position and its replacement with a part-time position. Besson further alleged that his two children were subjected to retaliation for his complaints of discrimination.

Kenneth Smith, who taught math at the high school for five years, claims the district discriminated against him in his course assignments and access to professional development, classroom equipment and economic opportunities. The final act of discrimination, he said, was his transfer from the high school to the Howard T. Herber Middle School.

On Monday, the Herald broke the story after acquiring a copy of the 38-page civil action suit, filed Dec. 7, which details the favoritism, inequity and acts of retaliation the three colleagues claim to have suffered throughout their careers in the school district.

“We think that we have a meritorious claim,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Steven Morelli, told the Herald on Monday. “We feel that these individuals have been singled out based upon their race in an adverse way. It’s a situation where there seems to be something going on in Malverne when it comes to minority teachers.”

The suit names as defendants the school district, Brown, Superintendent James Hunderfund, who is white, and two white high school administrators, Assistant Principal Vincent Romano and math department Chairwoman Rosalinda Ricca. It lists alleged disparities in Brown’s treatment of his assistant principals, giving more responsibility and opportunity to Romano while excluding Benedith from memos and, thus, important decisions.

It describes alleged retaliation for Besson’s vocal criticisms of Hunderfund, including threats to shut down the entire business department, and recounts Ricca’s alleged preferential treatment of white teachers over Smith and the “discriminatory and retaliatory efforts of the administration”

to remove him from the high school. According to the complaint, administrators transferred Smith to the middle school because of his students’ poor performance on one Regents exam question.

The defendants “created a hostile work environment, subjected [the plaintiffs] to an atmosphere for adverse acts and treated them disparately because of their race and good-faith opposition to discriminatory practices,” the suit reads.

“Though we have not yet been served with the suit, and were therefore unaware of it, we believe the claim is without merit,” Hunderfund said in a statement. “As this is a pending legal matter, we can provide no additional comment.”

Morelli said that the district might not have been served with the suit yet, but that it would be sometime this week.

“I know it’s been going on for a long time,” Morelli said, referring to the district’s turbulent racial history, which began with its forcible integration in 1965. “Based upon what I’ve heard, there’s a past. This should bring it to a head, we hope.”

Benedith, Besson and Smith are seeking compensatory emotional, physical and punitive damages. But what they really want, they say, is justice. “We hope to send a message,” Morelli said. “We hope that the school district will take notice and do something about this.”

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