NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A New York State Trooper filed a claim alleging she was denied maternity leave, had no place to pump her breast milk, and given a hard time about working light duty by state police in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint on Wednesday.
According to a Charge of Discrimination filed by Schashuna Whyte, her bosses did "not respect its female employees" and violated federal law by continuing "in a pattern, practice and policy of failing and refusing to provide nursing mothers and reasonable break times and a proper location to express milk," her complaint detailed.
Whyte, who became a trooper in 2017, also alleges that the department does not have a maternity policy in place and did not provide maternity leave when she was pregnant in 2018.
Additionally, she claims she was given a light-duty assignment on Wards Island, but heard “nasty, insensitive, mean-spirited comments” from her male superiors, who felt that she should be out in the field.
“(You) should be on the road or home if you are not fit for duty, I don’t care,” New York State Trooper Sgt. Matthew Dolen told her, according to the complaint.
“(Dolan’s) nasty, insensitive, mean spirited comments only reinforced her belief that female employees are not respected within the culture of the New York State police,” the complaint alleges.
After returning to work from her unpaid leave the first time, Whyte alleges she was not allowed breaks and forced to pump “in police vehicles, other government or private bathrooms which were humiliating, uncomfortable, unsanitary and unsafe or not at all.”
She also once had to pump in a storage room, her charge adds.
Whyte also alleges she wasn't given a space to store her breast milk while she was on duty.
According to legal papers, she had no choice but to put her pumped breast milk into “a portable lunch bag with ice” in her patrol car which “led to physiological complications including severe engorgement, Mastitis, lack of production and emotional distress,” the filing adds.
Whyte notes that she is not the only nursing mother in the state police who has encountered these issues.
According to the charge, this pattern of discrimination toward nursing moms can be traced as far back as 2007.