Pitt professor sues school, claiming retaliation by dean over views on Gaza

A University of Pittsburgh professor is suing the school and his dean, alleging he was removed from running the Center for Urban Education over his support for Palestinians.

T. Elon Dancy II, an education professor, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Pittsburgh on Thursday against Pitt and Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, the dean of the School of Education.

The complaint alleges retaliation, First Amendment retaliation and sex discrimination.

A Pitt spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Dancy is seeking reinstatement to his former position, lost wages, and compensatory and punitive damages.

He remains a professor in the School of Education. Dancy studies Black intellectual thought, men and masculinities, and structural oppression, according to his complaint and Pitt bio.

According to the complaint, Dancy began working at Pitt in July 2018 as both the executive director of the Center for Urban Education and Helen S. Faison endowed chair.

Zamani-Gallaher was hired as interim dean in the School of Education in August 2023, the complaint said. Seven months later, she was placed in the position permanently.

Her husband is James Gallaher, Pitt’s vice chancellor for human resources, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit notes that Dancy is a Black gay man who is married to a Muslim man.

In January 2024, as the Israel-Hamas war was intensifying, the lawsuit said, a group of students and others wrote a letter to Zamani-Gallaher critical of how the School of Education was addressing the situation. It asked that the department increase its educational programming on the war.

A follow-up letter called for Zamani-Gallaher to resign immediately and described her as “asleep at the wheel when called in to intervene” in violence against Palestinians.

When a professor in the department criticized the letter for singling out Zamani-Gallaher, Dancy responded in an email to School of Education administrators that students appeared to be frustrated by “being brushed off or dismissed” by her about their concerns over the situation in Gaza.

The letter asked the School of Education “to have a constructive dialogue with the student authors and cautioned against punishment.”

Dancy said Zamani-Gallaher also attempted to influence a doctoral student to drop him as their adviser because Dancy “‘allowed his students to write a letter calling for her resignation, and that this was problematic because she is a Black woman.”

According to the lawsuit, Dancy reported that incident to the university’s Title IX office and attributed Zamani-Gallaher’s comments “to gender and sex discrimination, stating that the messaging is that ‘as a gay person married to a man, I am not only defective in my sexual orientation, but that I also cannot perform my gender correctly and therefore cannot perform my role as a school faculty member or advisor (or any role) correctly,’ ” he wrote.

In May 2024, the lawsuit said, Zamani-Gallaher initiated an external review of the Center for Urban Education.

Although the report did not recommend any action against Dancy, the lawsuit said, he objected to way the review was conducted and filed a complaint with the school’s Title IX office in October 2024.

Around that same time, he also filed a discrimination complaint against Zamani-Gallaher with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Two days later, the lawsuit said, he was removed from his positions, with Zamani-Gallaher saying “it was ‘time to pursue new leadership.’ ”

He was replaced by two less-experienced women, the lawsuit claimed.