Woman claims race discrimination in lawsuit against Allegheny County
A former Allegheny County economic development program manager said in a federal lawsuit Thursday that she was fired two months after making allegations of discrimination.
Leandra Dimate Cortes, a Colombian immigrant, is suing Allegheny County for retaliation and race discrimination and seeks reinstatement and lost wages.
A spokeswoman for the county said she couldn’t comment on pending litigation.
Cortes was hired in February 2013 to work in the Department of Economic Development at a salary of $43,000 — an amount she alleges was lower than white employees who were less qualified.
But, Cortes said in her lawsuit, that race discrimination didn’t begin until 2016, when assistant director, Lauren Byrne became her manager.
Cortes filed a a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2018. Among her complaints, according to the lawsuit, was that she heard Byrne “refer to her in a condescending tone of voice” as “‘The Colombian.’”
She also said that the previous director, Bob Hurley, made negative comments about her.
After Cortes filed her EEOC complaint, the lawsuit said, she alleges that Byrne retaliated by creating a hostile work environment. Cortes includes four dates when retaliation occurred, and notes that she complained to human resources on Feb. 26, 2019.
About 10 days later, the lawsuit said, the county placed Cortes on a performance improvement plan for poor work performance and “‘unprofessional behavior in the workplace including subjective allegations of disruptive and disrespectful behavior and actions towards the manager and other co-workers.”
Cortes denies those allegations and said that the plan was a form of additional retaliation.
On March 25, 2019, the complaint said, Cortes asked for the specific allegations of unprofessional conduct in her performance plan and instead was sent home for allegedly being insubordinate or unprofessional.
On April 8, 2019, Cortes was against sent home for asking questions during a bi-weekly meeting, the lawsuit said.
Three days later, she was suspended indefinitely without pay, the complaint said, and provided notice that a hearing on the suspension was scheduled for 40 minutes later.
Cortes said she was officially fired on April 22, 2019.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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