Opinion ID: 1302107
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Petriccione

Text: Holcomb has also adduced affidavits and testimony to the effect that Richard Petriccione was in the habit of making racially offensive comments. Early in his tenure as an assistant coach, Holcomb claims to have heard Petriccione say: [E]verybody at Fordham thinks they have these good black kids, and Iona has niggers. A year later, when several black members of the Iona Gaels were accused of stealing and selling telephone access codes, Petriccione allegedly told Holcomb that the basketball program needed to keep [its] niggers in line. Colleagues at Iona testified to Petriccione's record of what might, charitably, be called racial insensitivity. Egregiously in this respect, Petriccione is said to have referred to a Nigerian employee at the Alumni Giving Office as a jungle bunny and an African princess. When that member of staff applied to his office for the position of Assistant Director of Annual Giving, he remarked: [W]hat does she think she is coming from a hut in Africa and thinking she could apply for this job? The most striking of the allegations against Petriccione relates directly to Holcomb and his wife. Plaintiff testified that in February 2000, he asked Petriccione whether he had received the wedding invitation that Holcomb and Gauthier had sent him. According to Holcomb, whose claim is backed up in this respect by a third party, Petriccione replied: [Y]ou're really going to marry that Aunt Jemima? You really are a nigger lover. [2]