{"id":17041,"date":"2025-10-27T22:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/17041\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T22:25:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:25:06","slug":"former-allentown-hr-director-sues-city-alleging-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/17041\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Allentown HR director sues city, alleging discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allentown\u2019s former director of human resources, who claims he was forced to quit in 2023 after less than two months on the job,<\/a> is suing the city in federal court, alleging illegal retaliation and age and religious discrimination.<\/p>\n

Allentown hired Nadeem Eli Shahzad in June 2023; prior to that, Shahzad had served as HR director for other government agencies including Delaware County and Nassau County, New York. Prior to Shahzad\u2019s hire, Allentown\u2019s human resources director position had been vacant for more than a year.<\/p>\n

Shahzad claims that in August 2023, he was fired from the position \u201cwithout just cause,\u201d though an Allentown spokesperson disputed that characterization. Shahzad alleges that Mayor Matt Tuerk had called him into a a meeting with a city lawyer present and gave him a choice: resign or be terminated and escorted out of the building. Shahzad said he chose to resign.<\/p>\n

City spokesperson Genesis Ortega has said Shahzad voluntarily resigned and that the city did not fire him. Reached for comment on the lawsuit, Ortega said the city does not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n

In a civil lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Shahzad\u2019s lawyer Marc Weinstein claims that the city illegally retaliated and discriminated against him.<\/p>\n

Weinstein alleges that Tuerk asked Shahzad to fire an employee whom Tuerk deemed a \u201ctroublemaker.\u201d Although the employee is not named in the lawsuit, Shahzad has previously publicly identified her as Karen Ocasio, a former human resources generalist who also claims she was discriminated against by the city.<\/a> The city fired Ocasio in November 2024, around four months after Shahzad alleges he was forced out of his job.<\/p>\n

However, the lawsuit alleges that Shahzad reviewed Ocasio\u2019s work performance and found no issues, so he refused to fire her. On Aug. 19, 2024, Tuerk told Shahzad to either sign a letter of resignation or be fired on the spot, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also claims that Tuerk called Shahzad, 79, a \u201cMuslim old man\u201d on at least three occasions.<\/p>\n

After Shahzad left his position, he filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. The commission dismissed his case on Aug. 22, noting that investigators did not find enough evidence for the claim but that Shahzad had the right to sue in federal court.<\/p>\n

Shahzad\u2019s resignation came a month after the Allentown branch of the NAACP raised concerns about alleged racism in City Hall in a public letter. The letter claimed that Tuerk and city staff ignored incidents of racism and named a host of grievances against city leadership. Shahzad said at the time there was \u201ca lot of truth\u201d to the letter\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

Tuerk has said the city does \u201cnot tolerate discrimination of any form in Allentown,\u201d and has thoroughly investigated all official complaints. An outside investigation approved by City Council and conducted by law firm Duane Morris found \u201cinstances of isolated discriminatory conduct\u201d and a \u201cgrossly mismanaged\u201d human resources department,<\/a> but no \u201csystem issue of racial or unlawful discrimination in the city government. Lawyers declined to make any details of their findings public.<\/p>\n

In his lawsuit, Shahzad asks for a jury trial, back pay and promotions from the date of his dismissal until the date of a jury verdict, as well as compensatory damages for mental suffering.<\/p>\n

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allentown\u2019s former director of human resources, who claims he was forced to quit in 2023 after less than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,46,433,182,139,28,50,432],"class_list":["post-17041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-courts","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}