Federal lawsuit claims 2019 firing was discriminatory, racial and retaliatory - Evanston RoundTable Close Search for: Search CITY NEWS SCHOOLS ART & LIFE PUBLIC SQUARE SPORTS BUSINESS CALENDAR PHOTOS NEWSLETTER BECOME A MEMBER About us Advisory Committee Donate Advertise with us Read us on your mobile device Join the RoundTable team Evanston History Reparations Podcasts and video Facebook Instagram Twitter RSS Close Skip to content Evanston RoundTable Evanston's community newspaper since 1998 Open Search Search for: Search Menu Posted inCity News Federal lawsuit claims 2019 firing was discriminatory, racial and retaliatory by Bob Seidenberg September 15th, 2022 September 18th, 2022 Share this: Print Evanston news delivered free to your inbox! Email address: Send me the Weekday newsletter + the Sunday weekly wrap-up Only send me the Sunday weekly wrap-up Submitting… Thank you, your sign-up request was successful! Please check your email inbox to confirm. If you don’t receive an email confirmation, please check your spam folder. {{message}} Leave this field empty if you’re human: Kevin Brown, the city’s former community services manager whose termination on Nov. 15, 2019, sparked a community protest, filed a complaint in federal court on Sept. 13 against the City of Evanston alleging that he was terminated on the basis of race and in retaliation for having months before called out a white supervisor for racial discrimination. Kevin Brown, shown here in front of the Civic Center, has filed a lawsuit against the City of Evanston claiming wrongful termination. Credit: Bob Seidenberg In the complaint, Brown, whose Youth and Young Adult program received praise for its work with at-risk youth and families, offered a narrative for his termination that was different from the one circulated at the time. In documents made available at the time, city officials maintained that Brown was fired for failing “to get his outreach workers to stop using parking spots a the city’s short-term parking lot at the Civic Center and for using his city credit card to pay parking tickets issued to the outreach workers.” The City of Evanston provided the following statement: “In January 2021, the Illinois Department of Human Rights dismissed charges filed by Mr. Brown against the City, finding no substantial evidence of discrimination. As a policy, the City does not comment on pending litigation, and will not be commenting on the lawsuit filed by Mr. Brown this week.” In the lawsuit, Brown traces his falling-out with the city to an interaction with Melissa Parker, a city employee who is white. Parker could not be reached for comment through a call to city offices on Thursday, Sept. 15. Another employee reported that Parker had recently left the city and said she would take the reporter’s information and see if Parker could be contacted. The lawsuit lays out the narrative like this: In March 2019, Brown attended a city meeting with Parker, and during that meeting, Brown raised the issue of Parker’s “white privilege” with her in response to a change she had made in a city policy. Brown said he believed the policy change had a disproportionately negative impact on the young people of color involved in his program. As a result of Brown’s comment to Parker, she filed a Healthy Work Environment claim against Brown, and Brown also filed a complaint against her. The investigations were conducted by Jennifer Lin, the human resources division manager at the time, but Brown claims he was punished more harshly than Parker. On March 22, 2019, and March 23, 2019, Brown sent emails to several senior city employees, including Lin, raising issues of structural racism in the application of Evanston’s “healthy work environment” policies. It points to a connection between those emails and the more recent report investigating sexual abuse in the Evanston lifeguard program which harshly criticizes both Lin and the “healthy work environment” policy. Lin had previously clashed with Brown over legislation proposed by former Evanston City Council member Cicely Fleming, Fleming wanted to change the policy regarding hiring people who had past criminal records, a change that was intended to allow Evanston to hire more people of color, which Lin opposed. When Lin left the city, she reached a settlement agreement after the outside investigation into her role on the complaints of sexual abuse in the Evanston lifeguard program. Contacted Thursday via email, Lin said she did not know anything about Brown’s lawsuit and had nothing to add. Brown saw Lin, Parker and Karen Hawk, his direct supervisor, socializing together. In October, 2019, the city said it was suspending Brown for violating the city’s policy by using a city credit card to pay for the parking tickets incurred by outreach workers for parking in the city’s lot. Evanston created a policy that city workers were not allowed to park in the two-hour parking spots and would be ticketed if they did so. There suit goes into great detail about the parking and what was considered normal by Brown, what was alleged and how the payments were permitted. It alleges city supervisors signed off on parking ticket payments, specifically Brown’s supervisors, Hawk and Lawrence Hemingway, the city’s director of Parks and Recreation and Community Services at the time, and specifically instructed him to pay for these parking tickets using his city credit card to be reimbursed by the city. Hawk resigned from Evanston in October 2021 in the midst of an investigation into her department’s handling of sexual harassment complaints by female lifeguards, the complaint alleges. Now director of Parks and Recreation for the village of Lincolnwood, Hawk did not respond to a phone message Sept. 15 seeking comment. The complaint alleges that on Nov. 15, 2019, Brown was told by then-interim City Manager Erika Storlie that his employment with the city was terminated. This followed pre-disciplinary hearing where it was charged that Brown ignored instructions from superiors, the complaint alleges. Following the decision, community members packed three City Council meetings, urging then-Mayor Stephen Hagerty and the council to overturn Brown’s termination. At one of the meetings, former Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl spoke of the work of Brown’s group, defusing violence. “Kevin has done a remarkable job,” Tisdahl was quoted as saying at the time. “One of the things that I did as mayor, I believe, was to encourage Kevin and to support him, and I’m here ask you to do the same.” Violence-interrupters An editorial published in the Nov. 17, 2019, RoundTable observed that “the outreach team members work with youth who have suffered trauma from such things as poverty, lack of care for physical and mental problems, stress and homelessness. The team members become mentors and, at times, mediators and violence-interrupters in order to keep the community safe and entice the youth from life on the street.” Community members appeared at a November 2019 protest in support of Kevin Brown. Credit: Bob Seidenberg Council members, however, took no action to overturn officials’ decision. Hagerty said he could not disclose any details of Brown’s termination, maintaining it was a personnel matter governed by personnel policies and applicable laws. ‘Hung out to dry’ The lawsuit seeks damages for racial discrimination and retaliation in multiple counts, including compensation for lost wages and other compensation, such as retirement benefits. Brown, currently senior director for external affairs at the Safer Foundation, a nonprofit group that works to reduce recidivism in Illinois, maintained in a phone interview that officials used the parking tickets as an excuse for his termination, “but really they were unhappy with me talking about racial discrimination in the workplace.” He said the parking tickets went through at least three layers of approval – Hawk, Hemingway, as well as the then-City Council, which ultimately approves city bills. “If anyone in that group was concerned about the transactions, they could have called for an investigation into the approval process,” he said. “Instead of owning up to it and saying, ‘Hey, he’s not being treated fairly,’ everyone sort of went along with it,” Brown said, “and sort of hung me out to dry.” Brown also said he reached out to new City Manager Luke Stowe following Stowe’s recent appointment. “I told him he had gotten the right to sue letter and I mentioned I was willing to come back to the city,” he disclosed. “But he didn’t give me any indication he wanted me back.” The statement from the city said that the conversation was a part of Stowe’s efforts to get in touch with community leaders. “During his first month as city manager, City Manager Stowe proactively reached out to many members of the Evanston community, including Mr. Brown, to discuss a wide variety of issues and challenges facing the City,” the statement said. “The purpose of these meetings was to listen, support collaboration, and build positive relationships.” Bob Seidenberg Bob Seidenberg is an award-winning reporter covering issues in Evanston for more than 30 years. He is a graduate of the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. More by Bob Seidenberg Join the Conversation 4 Comments The RoundTable will try to post comments within a few hours, but there may be a longer delay at times. Comments containing mean-spirited, libelous or ad hominem attacks will not be posted. Your full name and email is required. We do not post anonymous comments. Your e-mail will not be posted. Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}Your submission failed. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Learn More{{/message}} {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}It appears your submission was successful. Even though the server responded OK, it is possible the submission was not processed. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Learn More{{/message}} Submitting… Stephan Randerson says: September 18th, 2022 at 3:39 PM Why did this guy wait three years to file suit? The article seems to indicate he approached Stowe and asked to be hired back. After that conversation he sues for something that happened three years ago? Nothing in the story suggests any civil rights were violated related to his firing. Reply Mary Rosinski says: September 17th, 2022 at 3:09 PM Thank you for this comprehensive reporting on the firing of Kevin Brown. It was a travesty. Evanston lost an valuable, effective and dedicated employee when Mr. Brown was forced out of the city under the guise of parking tickets incurred by his staff while they were doing their work. Thttps://patch.com/illinois/evanston/city-urged-reconsider-firing-community-services-manager he youth services department was well run under his guidance and has not recovered since he was forced out. Although 100s of informed residents, non profits who work with kids, came out to speak on his behalf at the city council. The council did nothing, under the justification that they should not interfere with city manager decisions .However, they oversee the city manager and it would have made sense that Council could have helped the city manager find a better a resolution to the parking tickets his employees incurred. It was never really about the parking tickets, and the train was on the rails and out of the station Residents should know that while the city officials like City Manager Storlie, Counsel Kelly Gandurski, supervisors Lawrence Hemmingway, & Karen Hawk, were busy getting Mr. Brown fired, they were doing nothing about the complaints and charges of our lifeguards regarding sexual misconduct from 2019 at the beaches. https://evanstonroundtable.com/2022/02/25/sexual-misconduct-report-evanston-should-overhaul-lakefront-management-consider-discipline-of-officials/ All of the senior officials who knew, or should have known about the lakefront misconduct were not held accountable, they were given a pass to go on with severance packages and high paying jobs, Brown was fired, and Evanston lost a smart, dedicated and extremely qualified employee. For those unfamiliar with the situation here are some more perspectives. https://dailynorthwestern.com/2019/12/09/city/community-members-to-call-for-kevin-browns-reinstatement/ Reply Kelly Marcelle says: September 17th, 2022 at 9:44 AM If the city wasn’t bound by confidentiality, which in general is a good thing, they could’ve contributed to this article. As it is written here, we are only getting what Mr. Brown believes is true. Reply Karen Bauer says: September 16th, 2022 at 5:14 PM Reading about the federal lawsuit filed by Brown against the City of Evanston was disturbing to me. I only have the information as given in the Round Table today, but it strikes me that we need some adults in the negotiating room. Where is calm and respectful dialogue, insightful reasoning, sense of proportion, and professionalism in these discussions? It appears to me that everyone involved needs professional training and counseling in conflict resolution. I hope it is available to all. 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