Bartlett Files Discrimination Complaint

The city’s youth director, Jason Bartlett, has filed a complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities (CHRO), upping the ante in a standoff with the new mayor over his future employment.

Bartlett charges in the CHRO complaint that Harp administration officials — as well as new Mayor Justin Elicker — have discriminated against him because he is a gay black male.

Mayor Toni Harp placed Bartlett, one of her closest advisors and then-reelection campaign chair, on leave last June pending the outcome of an FBI investigation into spending by the youth services division, which Bartlett ran. The Harp administration allegedly was performing an internal investigation. Bartlett states that no such investigation took place, and notes that he was never publicly named as a subject of the FBI probe.

In last year’s mayoral campaign, Justin Elicker (who eventually won the race) called for Harp to fire Bartlett because of the investigation and because of internal emails showing Bartlett giving no-bid work to a former business associate.

Bartlett has remained on paid leave of absence ever since. He has two years left on his contract, which expires Jan. 31, 2022. Elicker, who took office as mayor Jan. 1, must decide whether to return him to his former post, seek to fire him, or negotiate a separation agreement.

In his complaint, filed Nov. 20, Bartlett wrote that ongoing ​“homophobic and discriminatory treatment” by Harp administration officials created a ​“hostile work environment.” The complaint details his side of behind-the-scene clashes he had as youth director with top Harp officials, especially social services chief Martha Okafor, Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter, and schools Superintendent Carol Birks, as infighting and chaos increasingly engulfed the Harp administration. (Okafor, Carter and Birks all left the administration.)

The complaint adds Elicker because of his call as a candidate for Bartlett’s firing.

“Justin Elicker (White Male), called on Mayor Harp (Black Female) to fire me,” Bartlett wrote. ​“Why would then Mayoral candidate, now Mayoral-Elect Justin Elicker (White Male) call for a middle management Black, gay male to be fired from the City of New Haven when he was aware that ​‘no member of the Mayor’s administration’ was named in the subpoena issued to the City of New Haven? What is Mr. Elicker’s non-discriminatory reason for calling for the termination of a Black, gay, New Haven city employee who is not an elected official?”

Click here to read Bartlett’s full 57-paragraph complaint.

Bartlett seeks immediate reinstatement to his job and demands that ​“the entire administration cease and desist in this racist, homophobic scenario where I am the ultimate scapegoat.”

“The most damaging and distressing part of the discrimination based on my protected class, was the segregation that was overtly forced onto myself and my staff and the public in general. During this period of time while I was allegedly awaiting a decision on an internal investigation that never got off of the ground, I was moved away from my staff; moved away from my job; placed under a gag order; told that I could not interact or explain what was happening to me to the public; and my staff were instructed not to speak to me, told to stay away from the campaign and campaign workers were told to not communicate with me.

“I was totally segregated from what I knew and loved to do, and I suffered the real effects of segregation in all aspects of my work life and public life.”

Attorney Jared Lucan of the firm Shipman & Goodwin wrote a terse response on behalf of the city to Bartlett’s attorney, Cynthia Jennings.

“The City is not interested in Pre-Answer Conciliation,” Lucan wrote.

Mayor Elicker Monday refused to comment either on the substance of Bartlett’s allegation — or the administration’s plans for leadership of its youth services department.

“Unloved Bi-Racial Gay Male”

Bartlett was a lightning rod for criticism as soon as he took the youth director’s job after managing Toni Harp’s successful 2013 campaign for mayor. He took the lead on initiatives like nationally recognized Youth Stat and the never-constructed Escape Center. Seen as a trusted political strategist for the mayor, Bartlett clashed internally with other Harp aides as well as with elected officials.

The complaint references, for instance, his clashes with Superintendent Birks, whose hiring he originally helped engineer over public protests. The two split after Birks took office and declined to work with Bartlett, who had been designated as a City Hall-Board of Ed liaison.

In his complaint, Bartlett writes that Birks had him removed from invitation lists for important meetings, cut off support for youth programs like Youth Stat, in general ​“preventing me from being able to effectively do my job.”

Bartlett alleges that Birks made the following ​“homophobic, hateful” statement about him on Nov. 7, 2018: ​“I grew up loved. I am not like Jason Bartlett, a bi-racial; adopted; gay male.”

Bartlett said he subsequently discussed the matter with the mayor and an advisor. Bartlett criticizes Harp for not firing Birks over the statement.

“There are multiple numbers of children who are gay, and for the Superintendent to harbor such negative feelings relative to members of the gay community, is untenable and unacceptable.”

Birks did not respond Monday to phone messages seeking a response.

Top-Level Clashes

Bartlett had repeated arguments with Okafor and Carter during the tenure over process and documentation, among other issues.

At one point Okafor was officially his supervisor. Bartlett in his complaint relates a clash over a self-evaluation that he claims Okafor pushed him to sign criticizing his ethics.

Carter, the city’s chief administrator officer, was subsequently assigned to be Bartlett’s supervisor, and the two had continual conflict. (The conflict was believed to be a reason for Carter’s eventual decision to quit his job; he ended up giving money to Elicker’s 2019 campaign.) Bartlett’s CHRO complaint accuses Carter of spreading a false rumor at City Hall and submitting a false police report accusing him of molestation of a minor in a city park, in an ​“attempt to have me terminated from my job and publicly humiliated.”

“The damage and personal harm that I faced every day of my life following that reign of terror, initiated by Okafor and carried out by Carter is something that no one should ever have to endure based on their protected class.”

Carter ​“even called the Police Commissioner, who in turn, contacted well known Pastors in the Black community, and subsequently, a letter was sent to the African-American Mayor’s Association repeating this false and vicious rumor. One candidate for Mayor, Ira Johnson, used this rumor to report falsely, that I was arrested in this entire scenario,” Bartlett’s complaint states.

Okafor could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.

Carter told the Independent he never concocted a report about Bartlett and child molestation. He said he received word about an alleged police incident involving ​“a fight [Bartlett] and his boyfriend had with somebody in the community.” He said he followed up with the police department (which he supervised as chief administrative officer), obtained a report about the incident, and ​“gave it to the mayor.”

Carter said he had trouble with supervising Bartlett from the start. ​“The mayor assigned Jason to me over email on Christmas Eve. She never did have a conversation with me about it. Also the chief of staff never had a conversation with me about it. I was shocked I would get a nice person assigned to me over email, not a conversation. When I started trying to supervise him, he had some contracting issues, and I documented them in a letter that I sent to corporation counsel, to the mayor, [Controller] Daryl Jones, and a few other folks.”

“I know he has no job, so he’s looking to get some reward. He’s going about it the wrong way,” Carter said of Bartlett’s complaint.

The CHRO complaint details how the Board of Alders questioned a proposed raise for Bartlett two years in a row before voting to approve it. ​“At least 15 other employees’ salaries were voted on and approved by the Alders over this two-year period. Every employee that the Mayor granted a raise to, received their raises over a three-year period,” the complaint states. ​“As a Black, gay male, I did not have my raises approved for a three-year period as my other similarly situated colleagues, and I received public humiliation every year when they questioned my right to have a raise, and subsequently voted my raises down on two occasions.”