Another lawsuit has been filed against the City of Sheboygan – this time on behalf of former City of Sheboygan Director of Planning and Development, Chad Pelishek.
The action demanding a jury trial was filed in federal court on Monday, and names the City of Sheboygan as well as Mayor Ryan Sorenson, Alders Barbara Felde, Roberta Filicky-Peneski and Amanda Salazar, as well as the Director of Uptown Social Emily Rendall-Aurajo as defendants.
The lawsuit was filed less than two months after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission granted Pelishek the right to sue in response to a discrimination charge. In it, the lawsuit contends that Pelishek reported concerns of growing racism in the City after hearing a racial slur uttered by an “unknown man”during a neighborhood association meeting that he attended in August of 2022. The suit contends that the “unknown man” was planted – with the knowledge of Mayor Sorenson – specifically to voice the slur in order to “set up” Pelishek, who was then instructed by Rendell-Aurajo to repeat the slur. That utterance, according to the suit, triggered a “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” collective that included the Mayor, at least one Alderwoman and two female department heads, to label Pelishek a “racists” for bringing up those concerns as a “white man”. The collective, the suit claims, then “fabricated a false narrative about him, and subjected him to severe abusive and hostile conditions that made his job nearly impossible.”
The suit claims that following those actions, interviews with those involved and others were conducted by a reporter who eventually published a story in the Sheboygan Press, further establishing the narrative with the public. The lawsuit claims that Mayor Sorenson then told the DEI group affiliates to send “outraged emails” to the Common council in response to the newspaper article.
The suit goes on to contend that in order “To “pay” for his alleged “racism,” the mayor and Council forced Plaintiff to turn over some of his duties to DEI activists, threatened him with discipline if he didn’t comply, and “gagged” him from expressing his concerns to private citizens and legal counsel. When Plaintiff discovered that public government records released by the Council had falsified information, Plaintiff was again told to remain silent and only show the “approved” message from the falsified records.”
The lawsuit continued: “After eight months of gag orders, threats, harassment, being labeled as a “racist,” and finally watching even his young children be harassed for information about him, Plaintiff’s physical, emotional, and mental state took a serious turn, and he had no choice but to resign. To date Plaintiff cannot find any similar work as a full-time employee because of the articles spread by city officials and their DEI collective affiliates, all of which accused him of racism and threatened to “come after” anyone who defended or associated with a white man “racist.””
The Request for Relief in the lawsuit is asking for a declaratory judgement against the City of Sheboygan’s acts and practices in violation of Title VII (of the Civil Rights Act, which protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin); to permanently restrain the City from continuing those actions; to find that Pelishek’s First Amendment rights (of free speech) were violated; to prohibit those named in the suit from making any disparaging comments about Pelishek; to remove any subsequent or negative performance or job-related information from his personnel file, and to award with compensatory and punitive damages.
The defendants have 60 days from filing to reply.
Comments