Updated

The relationship between the City of Ithaca and its police force has been contentious in recent years and the city has been working to repair it in recent months. However, the city’s relationship with its former acting Chief of Police John Joly seems past the point of repair as he is pursuing a lawsuit against the city with the help of Syracuse-based attorney A.J. Bossman.

The entire 10-page lawsuit was obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request from the Ithaca Times. It details that Joly has brought a lawsuit against the city for discriminating against him based on race on numerous occasions. Essentially, the lawsuit claims that Joly was denied promotion to Chief of Police because he is white and that “diversity” initiatives in the city unfairly discriminate against non-Black personnel. It names Mayor Laura Lewis, five members of the Common Council, and Director of Human Resources Schelley Michell-Nunn as defendants.

Joly was hired by the Ithaca Police Department (IPD) in 2005 and worked his way up the ranks to the position of Deputy Chief by 2020. Mayor Lewis appointed him to the position of acting Chief of Police in 2021 as the city continued searching for a permanent police chief. In July 2022, Joly applied for the permanent police chief position. IPD Lieutenant Scott Garin and Binghamton Police Captain Chris Bracco also applied for the position.

To assess which applicant was the best candidate for the job, the city created the Search Committee for the Chief of Police and Mayor Lewis selected Michelle-Nunn to chair the committee. 

The lawsuit claims that Michelle-Nunn, a black woman, “intentionally and routinely disadvantaged non-black applicants by…manipulating the selection and nomination process for Chief of Police to disadvantage [Joly] because he is a Caucasian male.” It continues by alleging that Michelle-Nunn gave “preferential treatment” to Scott Garin because he identifies as Black.

During a series of community forums organized by Michelle-Nunn that were held at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), Joly, Garin, and Bracco answered questions from residents about why they were the best candidate for the job at a time when the department has been working on rebuilding trust with the community. The lawsuit claims that these forums subjected Joly to a “discriminatory animus” and were “confrontational” due to a “question and answer” process focused on race. However, the forums were conducted to rebuild trust between the police and minority communities that have historically been negatively impacted by policing.

Following the forums, Mayor Lewis announced that Joly was her final choice for police chief on December 2, 2022, even though the search committee was in favor of choosing Scott Garin. As a result, several members of the Common Council came out publicly against the nomination of Joly saying that he was not the best pick to lead the department at a time when it is working to rebuild trust with the community. In response to the criticism, Lewis revoked Joly's nomination on December 4, 2022, and reopened the search process.

In an interview following the rejection of Joly, 4th Ward Common Council member Jorge DeFendini said, “Particularly with the reimagining public safety process, we've had a lot of head butting with the acting chief and those conflicts have led to a lot of uncertainty and misinformation regarding the reimagining process.” 

The lawsuit states that comments made by Alderpersons, Cynthia Brock, Jeffrey Barken, Jorge DeFendini, and Ducson Nguyen in an Ithaca Voice article published on December 5, 2022, implied that Joly was “racist” and that he was “unwilling to address ‘systemic and implicit racial bias in policing.’” 

The lawsuit continues saying that Alderperson George McGonigal refused to support Joly’s nomination based on his participation as a witness “in a discrimination/retaliation lawsuit brought by Christopher Miller.” 

Miller was a former IPD officer who brought a similar lawsuit against the city in 2005, alleging that he was passed over for promotion because he was white. Even though those claims were determined to be unfounded, the city agreed to a settlement with Miller in 2021 for $420,000 in addition to paying his nearly $1 million legal fees after a back-and-forth legal battle that spanned more than a decade. At the time of the settlement, former Mayor Svante Myrick said that “…settlement simply became cheaper than continued litigation that showed no signs of letting up.”

The lawsuit also states that Alderpersons Brock and Nuygen further discriminated against Joly by alleging that Joly and two additional IPD officers were “stealing funds and falsifying time cards.” However, Brock and Nuygen have explained that those allegations came from an anonymous whistleblower and they only passed them on for further investigation. 

“We recognized the seriousness of the allegations, and that it was our obligation and responsibility as elected officials to bring it forward to the appropriate bodies with the authority to investigate it,” Brock and Nuygen said in a joint statement. Following an investigation by New York State Police, those allegations were found to be false.

According to the lawsuit, the defendants revealed their “discriminatory state of mind” by making “assertions that [Joly] is not qualified to communicate with the minority population of the City of Ithaca.” It also stated that “This discriminatory bias is repeatedly exercised and justified by a false narrative that they are seeking to ‘diversity’ city personnel. This use of the term ‘diversity’ is intended to provide advantages to hiring and promotion of Black applicants and is to the detriment of Caucasian and non-Black applicants.”

While none of the defendants named responded to requests for comment, it seems like Joly’s allegations of what many call ‘reverse racism’ support the concerns that some members of the Common Council had about him being unable to address systemic issues in policing that have harmed minority communities throughout history. In addition, claiming that diversity initiatives discriminate against white people is reactionary rhetoric that ignores the history of systemic racism in the United States that those initiatives now exist to correct.

The entire 10-page lawsuit can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DzOiVnEVyEdju9VBMxiPMFTgdub1Q-9r/view?usp=drivesdk


Correction: This article was updated removing Alderperson George McGonigal from the list of Common Council members who were quoted in the December 5th, 2022 article published by The Ithaca Voice.