April - 2014

2nd Rye teacher on leave sues district

Published: April 28, 2014 Publication: Lohud By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy A second teacher is suing the Rye school district — and several school board members individually — for putting her on administrative reassignment following allegations of improper coaching more than a year ago, The Journal News has learned. Dana Coppola, a third-grade teacher at Milton Elementary School, is joining Osborn Elementary School teacher Carin Mehler’s lawsuit, filed last month. The teachers

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MTA Bias Suit Over Muslim Scarf Lives, Though Driver Died

Published: April 21, 2014 Publication: The Chief By Sarah Dorsey Though the woman who wore it has died, a suit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over the donning of a Muslim headscarf presses on. In 2005, Stephanie Lewis said she was fired by the MTA after she refused to put an agency logo on her khimar, a religious head-covering. She died in 2012, but a Federal Judge March 31 ruled that her suit, now carried on by her husband, can continue. http://thechieflea

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Quiet Labor Deal Gave $3M in Back Pay to Elevator Workers

Published: April 7, 2014 Publication: DNA Info By Colby Hamilton CIVIC CENTER — A labor agreement at the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration granted retroactive raises to hundreds of city elevator workers, costing the city an estimated $3 million in back pay, DNAinfo has learned. Under the terms of the September 2013 agreement, 443 workers who are part of Local 237 received raises of as much as 34 percent — retroactive to 2008 — for a total cost of $3 million, acc

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Death not end of line, Muslim’s MTA bias suit goes on

Published: April 6, 2014 Publication: Daily News By Pete Donohue Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Sandra Townes rejected a MTA motion to dismiss the lawsuit Stephanie Lewis filed in 2004. Lewis was transferred off her bus route and eventually fired for not agreeing to put a NYC Transit division logo on her headscarf due to religious reasons. Bus driver Stephanie Lewis refused to cover her religious headscarf or place an MTA logo on it. A Muslim-American bus driver who refused to

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Muslim bus driver’s civil rights case going to trial –– after her death

Published: April 5, 2014 Publication: NY Post By Rebecca Harshbarger The family of a Muslim bus driver who battled the MTA for years for the right to wear a head scarf at work won a major legal victory — a year after her death — when a federal judge ruled her civil rights were violated. Stephanie Lewis started driving in 1989, and wore a scarf called a khimar, that matched her blue uniform. “People loved her on Nostrand Avenue, where she would drive,” said her mom, Willia Mae

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Muslim bus driver’s discrimination lawsuit against MTA continues, even after driver’s de

Published: April 5, 2014 Publication: Daily News By Pete Donohue Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Sandra Townes rejected a MTA motion to dismiss the lawsuit Stephanie Lewis filed in 2004. Lewis was transferred off her bus route and eventually fired for not agreeing to put a NYC Transit division logo on her headscarf due to religious reasons. Bus driver Stephanie Lewis refused to cover her religious headscarf or place an MTA logo on it. A Muslim-American bus driver who refused to

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Attorney Plans to File Preliminary Injunction to Get Mehler Back to School

Published: April 3, 2014 Publication: Rye Record By Sarah Varney Attorney Arthur Schwartz will move for a preliminary injunction that could allow client Carin Mehler to return to her classroom at Osborn School. “We will ask for a judge to issue a stay so that Mrs. Mehler can get back to work,” said Schwartz. Mehler was one of four elementary school teachers suspended for allegedly coaching students during state testing. (Two of the teachers have already come to an agreement w

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Reassigned Osborn Teacher Files $2M Lawsuit

Published: April 3, 2014 Publication: The Rye City Review By Liz Button Fourth grade Osborn School teacher Carin Mehler has filed suit against six of the seven members of the Rye City School District Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Alvarez and several members of the district’s administration and staff, becoming the first teacher to take legal action against the district almost a year after she and three other district elementary school teachers were re

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Advocates for Justice
225 Broadway
Suite 1902
New York, NY 10007
Tel: (212) 285-1400
aschwartz@advocatesny.com

advocates for justice chartered attorneys

Advocates for Justice 225 Broadway Suite 1902 New York, NY 10007 Tel: (212) 285-1400 aschwartz@advocatesny.com

advocates
for justice
chartered attorneys

Advocates for Justice
225 Broadway
Suite 1902
New York, NY 10007
Tel: (212) 285-1400
aschwartz@advocatesny.com