The Riverdale Country School goes on trial today for allegedly espousing a sham “diversity” program that actually only sought to enroll full-paying Asians and wealthy but “noncelebrity” blacks.
Jury selection is slated to begin this morning in Bronx Supreme Court in the case, which pits the exclusive school against it’s former admissions director.
In his lawsuit against the school, Shereem Herndon-Brown describes his year working for Riverdale as a hell of racist enrollment policies and toxic housing. Lead levels in school-provided housing were off the charts, the suit alleges — and left his infant son with brain damage.
“It’s a lovely family, and other than that, I can’t comment,” his lawyer, Ed Hayes, told The Post.
Herndon-Brown, hired in 2005, claims he was told by then-headmaster John Johnson that diversity must be increased at the school, where Jewish families predominated and tuition starts at above $30,000 a year.
But not every minority need apply, he says.
“Johnson said that he wanted more full-paying Asians and non-Jews,” the suit claims.
“Specifically referring to students at rival school Horace Mann, Johnson opined that certain celebrity African-American parents would not be a good addition to the parent body. Rap artist Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs and director Spike Lee both sent their children to Horace Mann at the time.”
Riverdale says it will vigorously fight the suit, which its lawyer called “groundless and baseless.”
The suit also claims that in 2005, after a tree crashed through the employer-subsidized Bronx house Herndon-Brown had just moved into with his wife, Keri, and year-old son, Kerry, the family moved back to their previous home, a school-subsidized three-bedroom apartment on West 253rd Street, only to find through a routine blood test that the baby’s lead levels were high, leaving him permanently brain damaged.
Tests on the three-bedroom found it highly contaminated by lead paint, with the highest levels in the nursery, the suit says.
Herndon-Brown quit the next year and has sued for an undisclosed sum.