The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Friday against John Jay College of Criminal Justice, alleging that the school engaged in a pattern of job discrimination against noncitizens who were authorized to work.
The lawsuit, considered the department’s first in years to crack down on immigration-related discrimination against noncitizens, says the college violated provisions of immigration law by demanding extra work authorization from at least 103 individuals since 2007, rather than accepting the work-eligibility documents required of citizens, like a Social Security card and a driver’s license.
The suit seeks civil penalties of $1,100 for each individual and unspecified measures to overcome the effects of discrimination. It also seeks compensation for each person affected, including the woman who set off the investigation when she complained in 2008 to the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. She called the special counsel after she was fired from her job as a part-time computer lab assistant at the college, which is part of the City University of New York.
Christine Godek, a spokeswoman for the college, said John Jay had agreed “in principle”