A former Queens teacher and Air National Guard reservist claims a city educrat tried to shame him, and then illegally demoted him after he was deployed to active duty.
Taalib Boyd, 38, was hired as a teacher in 2003 and joined the Air National Guard in 2006.
He was promoted in 2018 to director of instructional technology for 150 Queens schools.
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But things took a turn when Boyd told his boss, DOE’s Executive Director of Queens South Marlene Wilks, 70, about an impending two-month military leave out of state, he said in a nearly $20 million Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit filed against the DOE and Wilks on Feb 13.
Wilks said she would never have hired him to the new position if she had known about his military duty, according to court papers.
By November he was demoted, while Wilks told him he was “wasting taxpayer money” to kill “black and brown people,” Boyd claimed in the litigation.
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Wilks, who left the DOE in 2021, allegedly also told him to “forget about your raise” — a reference to his effort to try to secure a pay increase to rectify the $10,000 pay cut he suffered when he took the director promotion and left his 15-year position as a teacher.
Boyd, a captain, said the details of his active duty deployment were classified.
Boyd maintains the demotion violates the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which prohibits hiring discrimination against uniformed service members.
Following the incident with Wilks, Boyd said tensions increased in the workplace.
“I’m somebody that’s contributing back, but yet I’m in this situation where I’m fighting for my career and I’m being harassed,” Boyd told the Post. “It’s a horrible situation.”
Boyd said he is still employed by the DOE, but has not returned to work since going on active duty at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. He receives $150 from the DOE in differential pay every two weeks, he said.
“Once it ended, I just never returned because I don’t want to deal with DOE,” he said. “I don’t want to ever deal with this place again. It’s not healthy.”
The DOE did not respond to requests for comment.