A former Dearborn Heights department head is suing the city and its mayor for alleged discrimination and retaliation for whistle-blowing.

Hassane Jamal

Hassane Jamal, former Community & Economic Development Department head, alleges in a complaint filed Oct. 2 in U.S. District Court that city officials including Mayor Dan Paletko “engaged in discriminatory practices against Jamal regarding the terms and conditions of his employment on the basis of age, race, national origin and religion, including but not limited to subjecting Jamal to harassing and humiliating acts, wrongfully terminating Jamal’s employment on July 6, 2009 and replacing him with a younger, Caucasian and non-Islamic employee who was born in the United States.”
Jamal, a Lebanese immigrant and a Muslim, also accuses Paletko and the city of subjecting Jamal to harassment and threats and terminated his employment after Jamal “reported a possible violation of law.”

Dan Paletko

The complaint alleges that Paletko grew angry with Jamal when he refused to use federal funds to repair a boiler in the Berwyn Senior Citizen Center, a building funded by Housing and Urban Development (HUD), because he believed proper contract-bidding procedures had not been implemented. He also complained to the city’s human resources director after a “young Caucasian female” was hired to fill a position in the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization program before the job opening was publicly posted, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims that Paletko fired Jamal in July as a result of the two incidents.

“The case has absolutely no merit,” said Livonia-based attorney Ron Acho, who is representing the mayor and the city in the case.

Acho, who is Arab American, said he has investigated the case and does not believe discrimination was involved.

“I was born in the Middle East. I am very sensitive regarding any discrimination toward our people,” he said. “If I had any belief that there was any discrimination against this person, I would have never taken the case.”

Jamal’s Royal Oak-based lawyer Michael Stefani, who represented police officers in the whistle-blower lawsuit against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, said Jamal feels he would not have been terminated if he was not of Arab descent.

“Was some of the reason for the mayor violating the whistle-blower act the fact that Mr. Jamal was an Arab? He thinks so,” Stefani said.

He said that even if Paletko is known to have good relations with the Arab American community, the mayor may have thought he could get away with more in dealing with an Arab American employee.

“I don’t know anything about his reputation,” he said. “All I know are the facts in this case. I do believe what he did was very heavy-handed and kind of my-way-or-the-highway… The mayor wanted to use funds from federal money that you had to go through a certain process to use these funds… Mr. Jamal tried to tell the mayor ‘Hey, you know, we’ve got to go through these procedures.’ The mayor didn’t want to hear it.”

Acho said the mayor denies asking Jamal to look the other way.

“There’s no logic to what he says,” he said. “The federal guidlines are the federal guidelines.”

He said the mayor wanted Jamal to go through proper procedure in getting the funds to fix the boiler.

“The plaintiff disagreed with the mayor,” he said. “You can file a lot of things. It either gets accepted or rejected…You file it. Either you’re right or you’re wrong. Get the job done. Make the application. If it isn’t justified, it gets kicked back.

“That’s why the mayor got frustrated with him.”

The suit seeks a jury trial and more than $75,000 in damages.