An employee of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii has sued the nonprofit and four of its top officials for allegedly violating the very principles, practices and values the ACLU publicly espouses.
Monica Espitia alleges in a 25-page complaint filed in Oahu Circuit Court that from the time she began work in 2019 at ACLU-Hawaii until her Nov. 29 termination, she was subjected to “a pattern of discriminatory and retaliatory conducted based on race and sex,” which she says damaged her career and led to her wrongful termination.
Espitia, who emigrated as a child to the U.S. from Colombia, got her degree in criminology and began working for the ACLU 17 years ago at its New York national headquarters.
She transferred in 2014 to its Florida affiliate, where she became “Regional Organizer for the largest voting rights campaign ACLU had participated in,” the complaint said. In 2019 she joined ACLU-Hawaii as Smart Justice Campaign director.
The complaint names ACLU-Hawaii’s Ryan Leong, who supervised Espitia; Scott Greenwood, interim executive director; Executive Director Josh Wisch; and Board of Directors President Marianita Lopez.
ACLU-Hawaii did not return calls from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser seeking comment.
The complaint alleges Wisch, who is white, accused Espitia of discriminating against white men when she chose not to hire a white male candidate he wanted for field organizer in 2019. The white candidate was one of four finalists; the other three were people of color.
The complaint says Espitia chose a Native Hawaiian woman with superior organizing experience who was better qualified, and from a marginalized community and personally affected by incarceration.
In 2020, Wisch allegedly tried to transfer money from Espitia’s program budget of $50,000, which she was awarded by writing a grant proposal to the national ACLU. That money was meant to be used to amplify voices of incarcerated people but instead the lawsuit claims he tried to use it to extend a Harvard graduate’s contract, someone not affected by incarceration.
Wisch allegedly suggested to Espitia that her position was in jeopardy after raising issues of inequities at the office and advocating for training on equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.
In October 2021, Wisch and Leong started excluding Espitia from press inquiries, and they were only handled by the male legal director and Wisch, the lawsuit says.
In January 2022, Leong told Espitia to manually calculate the math on interns’ paper time sheets, creating more work for her when it could have been handled by an electronic time sheet. When she brought the matter up, she alleges he raised his voice and cursed at her not to question his authority.
In February 2022 Tracey Tokuoka, ACLU-Hawaii operations director, allegedly called Espitia’s mannerisms “spicy,” a stereotypical term used to describe Latinas.
Espitia claims that she discovered in February 2022 from an EDIB consultant that Leong was trying to turn other directors against her, which caused her extreme emotional distress. Unbeknownst to the Espitia, the consultant, hired by Wisch, told the board about her concerns of retaliation by Wisch and Leong, the lawsuit says.
An investigation was begun by the ACLU-Hawaii. Wisch resigned in April 2022 before its completion.
Leong was promoted to interim executive director.
Espitia reached out on April 18, 2022, to Lopez for help because of Leong’s alleged continuing hostile behavior, but she did nothing, the complaint says.
Espitia asked the national ACLU for help in February and September 2022, but did not receive any.
She filed a complaint with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission and informed defendants Sept. 23, 2022.
