By Denise Richardson
A former dean has filed a lawsuit against the State University College of Agriculture and Technology and two of its administrators, alleging racial discrimination against black students.
Former Dean Thomas J. Hickey, who is white and a lawyer, has filed suit against SUNY Cobleskill, its President Donald P. Zingale, and Anne C. Myers, provost and vice president for academic affairs.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on Nov. 23, and Hickey seeks a jury trial and damages, including unspecified back pay, and attorney's fees.
Hickey, reached by telephone at his Fly Creek home, declined to comment Wednesday night on advice of his attorney, Phillip Steck. Steck didn't return a message left at his Albany office late Wednesday afternoon.
Hickey, former dean of liberal arts and sciences at SUNY Cobleskill, alleges in the lawsuit that the college has had a policy of admitting students who are unlikely to graduate because of academic background and lack of remedial programs at the college. The policy targeted black students, many of whom were recruited from the New York City area, it said.
``The college has taken their tuition for the express and admitted purpose of making budget,'' the suit said. According to a copy of the lawsuit, when Hickey discussed the discriminatory practice with Myers, she replied ``I do not care about these people,'' the court papers said, and Myers previously said these students were ``not cognitively and genetically prepared to function in college.''
SUNY Cobleskill spokeswoman Kate Birchenough said SUNY policy was to give no comments on pending litigation or personnel matters.
Of SUNY Cobleskill's 2,687 students enrolled, 215, or 8 percent, are black, according to Coby Quick Facts for this fall.
Hickey, dean at the college from July 2006 to July 2009, spoke out against the college's policy of fraudulently inducing students, especially black students, to enroll, court papers said. He alleges Myers and Zingale retaliated against him by pursuing his termination and denying him promotional opportunities within the SUNY system, including the position of provost at the State University College of Technology at Delhi.
Hickey alleges that in October 2006, Myers announced a change in ``Academic Review'' process that lowered the GPA threshold to effectively retain tuition-paying students without realistic possibility of obtaining a diploma. Hickey identified a student who had a B+ in English composition as being ``functionally illiterate,'' the suit said.
Hickey also alleges white and black students were being ``treated as two separate populations'' with different admissions requirements, the lawsuit said, and various practices ``created a racially hostile environment at the college.''
``The college was using tuition from African-American students to subsidize agricultural programs, which run at an annual deficit, even though these programs serve white students almost exclusively,'' the lawsuit said.
SUNY Cobleskill receives federal financial assistance used to help students referenced in complaint, the lawsuit said, and Myers and Zingale violated his constitutional rights.
