Cop Who Shot Pace Uni. Student Named 'Officer Of The Year'

As the investigation continues into the shooting of Danroy "D.J." Henry, the popular Pace University football player shot by police last year, a police union decided to give the "Officer of the Year" award to the man who gunned him down.

In response to the award, the victim's family lashed out against the Pleasantville Police Benevolent Association, saying it wasn't that much of a surprise.

"I'm glad the world gets to see the arrogance we've been dealing with since Oct. 17, from the district attorney's office all the way to the Police Benevolent Association," said Danroy Henry's mother, Angella Henry, in a statement Tuesday.

The US Department of Justice is still investigating the circumstances surrounding the Oct. 17 fatal shooting of Henry who was killed outside a Thornwood bar. Officers on the scene claim the student drove his car into Police Officer Aaron Hess and another officer, prompting Hess to open fire.

Friends of Danroy Henry gave a different account, however.  Henry's friend Desmond Hinds told PIX 11 News:

"I remember everything. I was in the backseat of the car, we were in the fire lane, officer came up on the left and banged on DJ's door, he indicated us to move, DJ followed instruction. He pulled off at a nice normal speed, not speeding; as he turned I remember the officer on the left comes and jumps out in front of the car, next thing I know...I see three holes in the windshield (and) the car came to a sudden stop. I saw the bullet holes in the windshield, then i heard DJ yell 'they shot me! they shot me!"

Four fellow Pace University students were arrested that night after chaos and utter confusion erupted at the scene following the shooting. The students faced numerous criminal charges that were recently dropped as prosecutors ruled the actions taken by the young men was a result of "youthful visceral reactions to the sudden, unexpected shooting of their friend."

A grand jury also decided not to charge Hess or any of the other officers in the shooting.

“What is the criteria for Police Officer of the Year?  Killing an unarmed African-American college student?” said attorney Bonita Zelman, who represented four of Henry's friends who were arrested that night.

In defense of their choice for the officer of the year, PBA President Matthew Listwan said, "The PBA's Award is an expression of support for the dignified and professional manner in which Officer Hess has conducted himself throughout this ordeal, and most particularly, the very difficult aftermath of this tragic incident."

To Danroy Henry's family, however, the timing of the award was troubling.  "It  just seems weird to us that they would honor him while he is still under investigation by the Department of Justice,¿ said Angella Henry.

Rob Hoell and Peter Thorne contributed to this report.

General Motors Foundation, United Way Give Detroit Schools $27 Million

As the Detroit Public Schools system continues its attempt to erase a $327 million budget deficit, financial assistance couldn't come at a better time.

The United Way for Southeastern Michigan will use a $27.1 million gift from General Motors Foundation toward reducing the dropout rate at seven metro Detroit high schools, Detroit News reports.

It's the GM Foundation's largest gift ever and will help develop a program already instituted by the foundation at five other metro Detroit schools. Students at the seven new schools receiving the funds will be split into schools within schools and receive more individual attention, the Detroit Free Press reports.

At Cody High, where the program is in place, the graduation rate used to be about 60 percent. Now, the school tells the Free Press that nearly 90 percent of students come to class.

"Small schools do work," said Johnathon Matthews, who is principal of the Academy of Public Leadership at Cody. "We get the kids to come to school and that's the first step to getting them to graduate."

GM made the pledge to United Way's Networks of Excellence program back in December and announced the recipient schools Thursday. The network targets schools with graduation rates of about 50 percent in areas where the most manufacturing jobs have been lost in recent years,according to Detroit News.

The company's North America President and foundation board member Mark Reuss tells Detroit News that the idea is to give kids a quality education and keep graduates working in Detroit and in the auto industry:

"That is selfish, but that is our vision moving forward," Reuss said. "We need to help students here succeed, and we need to make sure that the students who do succeed stick around to help the city rebuild."

The money will also go toward seven early learning community centers that prepare kids for kindergarten.

Support struggling Detroit schools by giving to United Way for Southeastern Michigan.

Civil War still divides Americans

By: CNN Political Unit

Washington (CNN) - It has been 150 years since the Civil War beganwith the first shots at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and in some respects views of the Confederacy and the role that slavery played in the events of 1861 still divide the public, according to a new national poll.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Tuesday, roughly one in four Americans said they sympathize more with the Confederacy than the Union, a figure that rises to nearly four in ten among white Southerners.

When asked the reason behind the Civil War, whether it was fought over slavery or states' rights, 52 percent of all Americas said the leaders of the Confederacy seceded to keep slavery legal in their state, but a sizeable 42 percent minority said slavery was not the main reason why those states seceded.

"The results of that question show that there are still racial, political and geographic divisions over the Civil War that still exists a century and a half later," CNN Polling Director Holland Keating said.

When broken down by political party, most Democrats said southern states seceded over slavery, independents were split and most Republicans said slavery was not the main reason that Confederate states left the Union.

Republicans were also most likely to say they admired the leaders of the southern states during the Civil War, with eight in 10 Republicans expressing admiration for the leaders in the South, virtually identical to the 79 percent of Republicans who admired the northern leaders during the Civil War.

The survey polled 824 adults via telephone between April 9 and April 10. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

–CNN Associate Producer Gabriella Schwarz contributed to this report

The cold case murder of Louis Allen (CBS)

For more Seattle police and crime news visit the front page of the Seattle 911 blog.

Sunday night on “60 Minutes,” reporter Steve Kroft told the story of Louis Allen, an African-American man killed 47 years ago in Mississippi.

The case doesn’t have an obvious tie to Seattle, but is still interesting. It’s one of more than 100 unsolved murder cases from the civil rights era the FBI is re-investigating.

In 1961, Allen saw a powerful state legislator, E.H. Hurst, shoot and kill an unarmed black man named Herbert Lee, Kroft reported. Allen told friends he’d been pressured into lying about the shooting, saying it was self-defense.

He later decided to tell the truth and went to the FBI. Threats were made against him. The FBI notified authorities in Mississippi.

The deputysSheriff who was notified, Daniel Jones, has been suspected of killing Allen. His father was the “exalted cyclops” of the local Ku Klux Klan.

Jones, who talked to Kroft, denies any involvement. The FBI is investigation, but without another eyewitness testimony or additional information, its case is circumstantial.

Still, FBI agent Cynthia Deitle believes there are people in Mississippi who know what happened. Watch the CBS segment below.

Teachers support cop-killer

By Caroline May - The Daily Caller   3:36 PM 04/11/2011

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/11/teachers-support-cop-killer/#ixzz1JFvLO5JQ

Between negotiating for more benefits and teaching their students, the California Federation of Teachers has adopted a resolution of support for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

At the CFT’s 2011 Convention in late March, the delegates passed 30 resolutions, from solidifying support for anti-bullying legislation to supporting transitional kindergarten. Among the resolutions largely pertaining to education and collective bargaining rights was Resolution 19 – to “Reaffirm support for death row journalist.”

“Therefore, be it resolved, that the California Federation of Teachers reaffirm its support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” the Committee Report reads.

Mumia Abu-Jamal was a former member of the Black Panthers who was found guilty of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel J. Faulkner during a routine traffic stop in 1981. Abu-Jamal was subsequently sentenced to death.

His supporters, such as the California Federation of Teachers, argue that his trial was unfair and that he is a civil rights hero.

“Mumia Abu-Jamal has for decades as a journalist fought courageously against racism and police brutality and for the human rights of all people and has taken strong stands in support of working people involved in labor struggles and in support of well-funded, quality, public education,” the resolution reads.

Daniel Flynn, author of “Cop killer: How Mumia Abu-Jamal conned millions into believing he was framed” told The Daily Caller that Abu-Jamal was the poster-child for ending the death penalty…20 – 30 years ago.

“Somebody should tell the California Teachers Federation that this is over, he is in jail, he is going to stay there,” Flynn said. “You have numerous eyewitnesses saying Mumia did it. You had ballistic evidence – Mumia’s gun at the scene was consistent with the bullet used to kill Faulkner. Mumia admitted after the fact that he did it.”

Fred Glass, CFT spokesman, told TheDC that the even though the case is 30 years old, since Abu-Jamal is still going through appeals, the issue remains relevant.

“The delegates decided it was time to reiterate that they supported him due to the irregularities that they felt had taken place during his case,” said Glass. “They see this as a civil liberties issue, it is quite common for the CFT to take positions on broad social matters like this.”

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spokesman Tom Lansworth, said that this is an issue the national union has never before considered, however, it likely will appear before the AFT at their next convention.

“It appears that one of the intents of the California resolution is to present this issue to the next AFT convention, which will be next year. Our national convention is held every two years. So the California action is part of the normal process of proposing resolutions for debate by the national convention. This does not appear to be an issue that we have acted on before,” he told TheDC, adding he had no idea whether the AFT would adopt the resolution.

Either way, Flynn sees the action as the CFT showing their liberal stripes.

“The California Federation of Teachers is reacting to that long tradition on the left that takes murders and makes heroes out of them,” said Flynn.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/11/teachers-support-cop-killer/#ixzz1JFv7Ru1g

NAACP objects to MLK Drive location for Civil War marker

By Megan Matteucci 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the street named after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. will soon bear a marker commemorating the burning of Atlanta.

The Georgia Historical Society will install the historical marker Monday in front of the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot onMartin Luther King Jr. Drive.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said it doesn’t mind remembering history, but it would have preferred a different location.

“It seems to be honoring something that reminds us of some tragic occurrences that happened to our people at the time. The whole war itself centered around the slave issue,” said R.L. White, president of the NAACP’s Atlanta branch. “We accept that it’s history but would like to see it done somewhere else than the heart of the civil rights historic district. It’s kind of tragic that the state is choosing that location.”

W. Todd Groce, president of the Historical Society, said the site was picked because it is where the burning took place.

“This is about telling stories not told in the past, including the stories of the African-Americans,” Groce said. “It was an issue about race and slavery. Some can even say that Dr King’s remarkable accomplishments are part of this and related [to it]. What he had to do was finish that last chapter to African-Americans. It was the final chapter of the Civil War.”

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and Historical Society officials will unveil the marker at 11 a.m. Monday. It will mark Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea, when he ordered troops to burn all railroads, factories and commercial buildings of possible use to the Confederacy.

Despite statewide budget cuts, Georgia has allocated $380,565 this year for activities commemorating the war’s sesquicentennial. About $80,000 of that will go to the Georgia Historical Society to install historical markers, said Alison Tyrer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Economic Development.

The state awards the money to the Historical Society, but it is not involved in the decisions as to how to spend it, she said.

“It’s all about trying to capture heritage tourism dollars,” said Will Hanley, the marker coordinator for the Historical Society. “We feel there will be a lot of tourism dollars spent on the Civil War anniversary.”

As part of the commemoration, 13 new markers will be installed and seven missing or damaged markers will be replaced. Groce said the Historical Society tried to include historical events that included African-Americans, women, Unionists and the home front -- topics previously neglected.

There are already about 200 Civil War markers in the region, but none mention the burning of Atlanta, Groce said.

Does Racism Make Black People Sick?

http://atlantapost.com

Most black folks are aware of the negative effects racism can have on one’s life. Systematic racial discrimination can, among other things, determine which job opportunities are offered to you, which neighborhood you can live in, and even the how often police will stop you. But now new emerging research suggest that racial discrimination has dangerous health side effects.

According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, chronic exposure to racial discrimination is comparable to the constant pressure soldiers face on the battlefield. Just as soldiers experience debilitating stress when they return home, so do African-Americans when they face racism, causing what researchers have termed race-based battle fatigue.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, surveyed nearly 6,000 African-Americans for the study. The findings suggest that more than 40 percent of American blacks have experienced some form of racial discrimination. Therefore, approximately 4.5 percent of blacks suffer from general anxiety disorder, or GAD.

The idea of an anxiety disorder related to race is not new. A previous study concluded that fifth-graders, who felt they were being mistreated because of their skin color, would have a greater chance of developing mental disorders. A group of Harvard researchers documented that a mere 1 percent increase in incidences of racial disrespect translates to an increase in 350 deaths per 100,000 African Americans.

The term race-based battle fatigue was actually coined by University of Utah professor, William A. Smith, to describe the stress and angst caused by constantly dealing with both overtly racist actions and subtle references to one’s race. While blacks have long suspected that racial stereotypes and negative images are denigrating to an individuals’ self-worth, this research, among others, has finally drawn a correlation between these persistent stressors and overall mental health.

Anxiety disorders have psychological and physical symptoms that are so severe that they can significantly impact everyday tasks and job performance. People with the disorder may have chronic worrying, intrusive thoughts and difficulty concentrating. Physical symptoms may manifest into tension headaches, extreme fatigue and ulcers.

Compare that with the feelings you get when thinking about a time in your life when you were stereotyped and marginalized based on your race. Remember how spiritually draining it was not to retaliate in the same visceral vein as the offender or offending institution? You probably can’t describe the story without a feeling of frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, and/or fear.

Black folks and other marginalized minorities have developed many ways to cope, deal and/or adapt to racial discrimination.  Some of us fight while others seek to ignore or transfer our anger onto others. But, there are some of us who are unable to cope. Take for instance Omar Thornton, a black beer delivery guy who shot at five white folks at the Hartford Distributors, his place of employment. His family has long asserted that Thornton was never a violent person; however, when faced with a steady stream of prejudice and intolerance, he was pushed to his breaking point.

Unfortunately, the only true solution to race-based battle fatigue or race-based anxiety disorder comes from the full representation of minority groups at all levels of society. Until then, blacks in this country will continue to be mentally and emotionally assaulted as a result of racial discrimination.

Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things

NAACP joins with Gingrich in urging prison reform

By JESSE WASHINGTON 

The Associated Press

The NAACP is joining Newt Gingrich in calling for a reduction in the number of state and federal prisoners and spending the savings on education.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a report on Thursday that said between 1987 and 2007, state prison spending grew at six times the rate of higher education spending. It recommends examining policies in states that have reduced their prison populations.

"For 30 years we've been practicing failed crime policies that don't make us safer, in fact they make us less safe and cost billions of taxpayer dollars," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"It's time to get smart on crime and stop pretending we're tough on crime," Jealous said. "Smart on crime is policy based on what works. Tough on crime is about good PR, like responding to drug offenses with mass incarceration. Smart is rehabilitation."

Gingrich, a potential Republican presidential candidate, noted that $68 billion was spent on incarceration last year in the United States, even though some states have reduced their costs with alternative programs.

"It is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners," he said in a statement.

Others backing the report include Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Rod Paige, who was Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush; and Mike Jimenez, an executive board member for the prison guard group Corrections USA.

Norquist said his group got involved because when it comes to making the argument for reducing the number of prisoners, "liberals can't do it. People say, 'You just want to let all the murderers out.'"

"But we are spending a great deal of money keeping people in prison, and for many of them it doesn't make sense to keep them there year after year," Norquist said. "Some do better with things like home confinement, probation, ankle bracelets, rehabilitation, all of which are much less expensive. We can do this in a serious way and still keep the crime rate down."

The report's recommendations include: a commission to study and recommend reforms; eliminating sentencing disparities between powder and crack cocaine; freeing prisoners earlier if they participate in educational, vocational, drug and mental health programs; eliminating mandatory minimum drug sentences; and diverting drug offenders to treatment.

Norquist said his group thought any prison savings should be returned to taxpayers, not spent on education.

"The NAACP wants to spend that money in some places that we don't," he said. "We can argue about that, but first let's save the money."

____

Online:

NAACP report: http://bit.ly/eShuv1

Trinidad's Rich Keeping Slaves

http://www.trinidadexpress.com

'Slaves' brought in from other islands

By Julien Neaves

Story Created: Apr 10, 2011 at 12:47 AM ECT

Story Updated: Apr 10, 2011 at 12:47 AM ECT 

THERE are reports of people from small Caribbean islands being held as virtual slaves in homes in Trinidad, said Foreign Affairs Minister Surujrattan Rambachan.

"From time to time, you hear in this country, up to this day, about people who are virtually slaves in homes of people in this country. Who have been brought from Guyana... (or) other small islands and working as supposedly maidservants in homes, their passports taken away and they cannot get out of their homes and begging people to get out of the country," Rambachan said.

He was speaking in Parliament on Friday during debate on the Human Trafficking bill at the Red House, Port of Spain.

He said in a United States 2010 trafficking report, Trinidad and Tobago was described as a destination for forced prostitution of women and children and forced labour for men.

Rambachan said in 2007, 71 women and children in Marabella were held by authorities, many with fraudulent passports and some had previously been deported from T&T.

On the issue of smuggling, he said there were reports of people being smuggled into this country through Moruga, Carli Bay and Cedros. He also noted that many people from Asian countries were setting up businesses in T&T, advising that immigration officers look into whether there were any situations of forced labour.

"Chinese labour," Minister in the Ministry of Labour Rudy Indarsingh chimed in.

Rambachan also read from media reports about human trafficking in Trinidad and wondered what the People's National Movement (PNM) did about it and why legislation was not brought to Parliament. He said the previous administration "always had an excuse" and downplayed the problem.

Point Fortin MP and former foreign affairs minister Paula Gopee-Scoon said the PNM government had ratified an international protocol on human trafficking, drafted legislation, set up a multi-agency task force and had authorities being trained by the International Organisation for Migration.

She said while Trinidad and Tobago was on the international Tier 2 Special Watch List in the June 2010 report for not having legislation to address human trafficking, it also noted that this country was making significant efforts.

Rambachan said the PNM had delayed for years to bring human trafficking legislation and it was this Government that implemented it in ten months. "Action was required and the People's Partnership is about action," he boasted.

He said the conservative estimate globally of human trafficking at any one time was 2.5 million, and profits from the illegal trade generated tens of billions of dollars. He said there were also reports that people were being trafficked into this country to serve as sex slaves or used as pay-offs for drug lords.

Rambachan described human trafficking was a "grievous sin" that should be wiped from the face of the earth. "Can you imagine... the pain, the agony, that a child who has been snatched would be suffering as a victim of human trafficking?" he asked.

Gopee-Scoon said she believed the bill was brought to Parliament because the results of the Human Trafficking in Persons Report 2011 are to be released by the US in June 2011. She said if the legislation was not brought, this country will be downgraded to Tier 3, which has "serious consequences", including reduced assistance grants.

Jury selection in Jackson trial proves difficult

This week, lawyers will get their first look at what potential jurors think about the case when 29-page juror questionnaires are turned over to the defense and prosecution.

Jackson, the 50-year-old "King of Pop," died in June 2009 from an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol mixed with sedatives, a coroner's report said.

Conrad Murray, 58, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He was treating Jackson for insomnia as the entertainer rehearsed for his "This is It" comeback concerts in London. Murray, a cardiologist, has pleaded not guilty and is free on $75,000 bail. If he is convicted, the maximum penalty would be four years in prison.

"Everybody's heard of the case," prosecution spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons says. So weeding out potential jurors with unchangeable views on guilt or innocence has taken on the elaborateness of celebrity trials like that of football star and actor O. J. Simpson, who was acquitted at the same courthouse in 1995.

Coverage by mainstream news outlets isn't the main problem, says Ed Chernoff, Murray's chief defense lawyer: "Blogs and other stuff that comes out, they're not objective."

Trial proceedings began March 24 when potential jurors arrived for preliminary screening. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor ordered them not to talk or read about the case in any form — Twitter, social networks, TV, magazines or newspapers.

Pastor erupted on the bench March 24 after the TMZ.com gossip site published six questions that potential jurors supposedly were being asked on a sealed questionnaire. Not one of the questions was in the survey, but Murray's defense fired its publicist after she admitted leaking to the website questions that had been suggested by the defense but not adopted by the judge.

Pastor and the attorneys expect so many legal challenges over bias that an unusually large group of 470 potential jurors was summoned to court over three days. Only three told Pastor that they hadn't heard of the case. Pastor excused those who said serving during the expected two-month trial would cause hardship.

Among 117 questions, panelists were asked whether they regularly view websites or blogs including TMZ, PerezHilton, SmokingGun and RadarOnline and whether they themselves have "posted any blogs concerning Michael Jackson or Conrad Murray."

On May 4, both sides will start questioning panelists in court. Lawyers' opening statements are scheduled for May 9. The trial will be televised and streamed on the Internet.

Prosecutors have said Murray breached medical standards by giving Jackson access to the powerful propofol outside of a hospital setting and failing to monitor his condition. Chernoff has raised the possibility that a sleepless Jackson, addicted to propofol, injected himself while Murray was in the bathroom at Jackson's rented mansion.

"The crux of the defense is going to be that Michael Jackson engaged in a desperate act and took desperate measures that caused his death," Chernoff said in court Wednesday. "We believe at the time Michael Jackson died he was a desperate man in relation to his financial affairs."LOS ANGELES — The marathon search for a jury in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor for the singer's death is testing whether it's possible to find unbiased jurors in the age ofTwitter, blogs and celebrity-news websites.

Black in Latin America: Brazil's Complex View of Race and Color

Brazil once touted itself as free of racism. It turns out that the truth was more complicated -- a lot more complicated. In his new PBS series, The Root's editor-in-chief examines the complexities of race and color in Brazil, the country with the second-largest number of people of African descent in the world after Nigeria -- far more than the United States. Check out the video below and those to the right to find out why the scope of slavery was so much larger in Brazil, and what prompted Gates to say, "I knew how barbaric slavery was in the United States, but it was even worse in Brazil."

Plus, there's more coverage of the black experience in Latin America on The Root.

Discrimination Lawsuit Aims to Define Sex Beyond Gender

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

El'Jai Devoureau, 39, said he was asked by his supervisor if he had undergone any operations to change his sex.

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: April 11, 2011

What is a man? For El'Jai Devoureau, this is not a rhetorical question.

Mr. Devoureau, who was born physically female, is a man at the Motor Vehicle Commission, at the Social Security office, at home, at job interviews. But what about at the urinal?

In a case with a truly unusual set of factors, Mr. Devoureau filed a discrimination lawsuit on Friday that could break new ground in New Jersey and across the country, turning on the question of who is or is not a man. An employer fired Mr. Devoureau because it said only a man was allowed to do his job: watching men urinate into plastic cups at a drug treatment center.

Mr. Devoureau, 39, says he has identified himself as a man all his life. In 2006, after he began taking male hormones and had sex-change surgery, he adopted the name El'Jai (pronounced like L. J.). A new birth certificate issued by the State of Georgia identifies him as male, as does his New Jersey driver's license, and the Social Security Administration made the change in its records.

"As long as I've been a person, I've lived as a man," he said in an interview. "At age 5, I did everything a boy did: I climbed trees, I played football, I played with trucks. Most of the people in my life, all they know is I'm male."

Last June, Urban Treatment Associates in Camden hired Mr. Devoureau as a part-time urine monitor; his job was to make sure that people recovering from addiction did not substitute someone else's urine for their own during regular drug testing. On his second day, he said, his boss said she had heard he was transgender.

"I said I was male, and she asked if I had any surgeries," he said. "I said that was private and I didn't have to answer, and I was fired."

Calls to Urban Treatment were not returned. But after Mr. Devoureau made a complaint to the state's Division on Civil Rights, the treatment center filed a response in January saying that Mr. Devoureau's dismissal "was not motivated by, nor related in any way to, any discriminatory intention."

Civil rights laws and court decisions allow limited cases of favoring one group over another, like giving preference to women for jobs as nurses in maternity wards. In its January filing, Urban Treatment said that firing Mr. Devoureau was legitimate, "since the sex of the employee engaged in that particular job position is a bona fide occupational qualification" - implying that Mr. Devoureau was not really a man.

Mr. Devoureau's suit, filed in Superior Court in Camden, is not the first job discrimination case brought by a transgender person, though those remain rare. But Michael D. Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, said it was the first employment case in the country to take on the question of a transgender person's sex.

Mr. Silverman's group and the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher are representing Mr. Devoureau.

New Jersey laws ban job discrimination based on a long list of criteria like age, religion, sex and race; in 2006, the state added "gender identity or expression" to that list. But five years later, Mr. Silverman said, no cases using the gender identity passage have been brought to a verdict, though others might have reached settlements.

New Jersey is one of 12 states that ban discrimination based on transgender status; New York State does not, but New York City does.

Mr. Devoureau now has another part-time job, as a package handler for a shipping company. Although his $10-an-hour post at the treatment center would hardly strike most people as a dream job, he wants it back. He says he needs the additional income to support himself and his 18-year-old son, and in a weak economy, he will take what work he can find.

Mr. Devoureau guards his privacy, refusing to discuss precisely what changes have been made to his body, or to say what name he was originally given, and he knows that his case could force such things into the open.

"They were judging me for who I am, not for the job I was being asked to do, and that's wrong, and I was hurt," he said. "I'm doing this so everyone knows it's wrong, so it doesn't happen to anyone else."