Black School Superintendent Discriminated Against White-Owned Company, Federal Jury Finds
The late Arlene C. Ackerman, while serving as superintendent of the Philadelphia School District, allegedly told administrators during a September 2010 meeting she was tired of the district giving work to contractors who didn’t look like her, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Security & Data Technologies Inc. of Newtown, Pennsylvania — owned by two white men, the paper reported — had begun preliminary work to install surveillance cameras at 19 schools as part of a $7.5 million no-bid contract, the Inquirer said.
But Ackerman apparently wasn’t having it, adding at the meeting she would make sure “all these white boys didn’t get contracts,” according to John Byars, a former top district procurement official, the Inquirer said. Ackerman allegedly asked why “a black firm [couldn't] get it” and directed the surveillance camera job be given to IBS Communications, a minority-owned firm, the paper said.
IBS hadn’t sought the contract and wasn’t on a state list of companies eligible for no-bid contracts, the Inquirer said.
