Fired city teachers and other school employees who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine were blacklisted with a “scarlet letter” in their personnel files by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration — hindering their ability to find work elsewhere, says the lawyer repping a slew of them.
The city Department of Education put a special “code” indicating wrongdoing in the files of the terminated workers, most of whom declined to get the vaccine because of religious beliefs, said their lawyer, John Bursch.
“Loosely speaking, it is like a scarlet letter,” Bursch told The Post on Tuesday.
“The employee’s personnel file shows a [generic] problem code that could just as easily be [for] committing a crime as declining to take a vaccine for religious reasons. In some instances, when plaintiffs tried to obtain employment elsewhere, they were told that they were red-flagged because of the problem code.”
Bursch made the bombshell claim during oral arguments Feb. 8 in the federal case New Yorkers for Religious Liberty vs. The City of New York, but the issue just came to light in a Fox News Channel report Tuesday.
The suit claims the city engaged in religious discrimination by terminating nearly 2,000 employees who refused to get COVID-19 shots.
Mayor Eric Adams recently lifted the vaccine mandate, allowing up to 1,780 terminated workers to reapply for city jobs — but without back pay or guarantee of retroactive full benefits during their absence.
Bursch argued before judges with the US Court for the Second Circuit also that the fired employees’ “fingerprints are sent with that flag to the FBI and the New York Crime Justice Services,” harming them “irreparably.”
Bursch acknowledged Tuesday that fingerprints of city employees routinely go to the FBI and state Division of Criminal Justice Services for background checks but added, “What’s disturbing is that these problem codes were being attached to the fingerprints.”
Betsy Combier, a paralegal and former United Federation of Teachers rep who personally represents educators in disciplinary cases, issued an affidavit about the “code” on behalf of plaintiffs in the case.
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“When the DOE puts a problem code in the employee’s personnel file, it also places a
flag on the employee’s fingerprints, which is then sent to the national databases at
both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Division of Criminal Justice
Services,” Combier said.
Combier said that when an employee submits proof of vaccination, the code is removed from his or her file.
She said Tuesday she is negotiating with DOE officials on behalf of many fired workers to have the negative code removed from their file.
“They’re good people. It’s outrageous,” she said.
She said any contractors who work with the city’s Department of Education could get access to the disciplinary files through the school system’s personnel and payroll system. Other school districts should not be able to access the records but can get the information unofficially through back channels, she said.
Mayor Adams’ office dismissed the accusations as off-the-wall.
“These are false, nonsensical claims. No code is part of anyone’s permanent personnel record or is ever sent to any other department, agency or outside organization,” a City Hall spokesman said.
“In fact, no outside entity can see any code placed on anyone’s internal [human-resources] record for any reason.”
City Hall added that the standard background-check procedure is: HR units request information from the FBI or state agency based solely on fingerprinting information.
