WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren OhioEx-Director of Jobs & Family Services and workers file $1-million suit alleging reverse discrimination

Ex-Director of Jobs & Family Services and workers file $1-million suit alleging reverse discrimination

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - An alleged race war of sorts has four white female employees at Mahoning County Job and Family Services claiming racial discrimination, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Three current and one former employee have filed a $1-million lawsuit against Mahoning County Commissioners and the county's Job & Family Services Agency.

Robert Bush, the current Director of JFS, says long before he took the job there was a history of problems between a small group of employees, and they just happen to be of different races.

Bush says, "I'm disappointed on behalf of all the employees. We've got 219 employees here. The vast majority are just good people, they come do their work and they go home. We've probably got about two dozen in the whole agency that want to do whatever they want to do and we're not going to let that happen."

Director Bush goes on to say, "As far as allegations in the lawsuit, they're full of half truths. If some of that stuff happened, it happened before I got there. If things have happened since I have been here, if it comes to my attention, and when it comes to my attention, we deal with it."

Judee Genetin, the Former Director of Mahoning County Job and Family Services, is one of the four females suing alleging reverse discrimination.

The lawsuit says, "Racial issues, double-standards for employees depending on their race, and intolerable working conditions... forced her (Genetin) to resign."

The three other women accuse management at Job and Family Services of failing to act or properly investigate numerous acts of intimidation by African-American employees against Caucasian employees, and they allege African-American employees were allowed to leave the building and run errands, but Caucasian employees were not permitted to do the same.

Director Bush says, "If someone is leaving the workplace to go do something and it comes to my attention they will be dealt with, in fact, we had one of those issues and it was an African-American female and she was disciplined."

According to Bush the department's employees have had several courses in sensitivity training.