Ramona Shaw's employment discrimination lawsuit against the City Colleges is the gift that keeps on giving, shedding light on the inner workings of a large bureaucracy that is usually opaque to the public.

Last week, we reported that there was a culture of retaliation inside the City Colleges, citing the deposition of the district’s former general counsel, now a circuit court judge. There’s more to it.

Now that we’ve had time to go through yet more of the depositions, we find this:

“Non-African-Americans were easy to promote and were not punished as severely if they made a mistake, or if they did something that was not within procedures or the rules of the City Colleges.”

That’s Marnell Love, a former vice chancellor (read: high-level manager) inside the district’s HR department, in his deposition in the Shaw lawsuit.

Speaking of promotions:

“I wanted to promote my employees who had outstanding records, and we had documented their performance … and that they deserved to be promoted. And I had to promote other people that did not deserve it in order to get my promotions through, which, basically, I promoted everybody in the department.”

Love goes on to talk about the tense work environment, festering upset over pay inequities, and infighting and feuding among some people in the HR department.

Love was fired about a year ago, shortly after he returned from a vacation last summer. According to his deposition, he was fired without cause, because he was an “at will” employee. He was never given a reason for his termination.

“The only thing I can speculate is because of Ms. Metcalfe (the HR director) being very upset with me about possible testimony in the Shaw case. All of my work was superior. Every project came in on time, correctly and under budget. I met every objective. … Things that had been on the books erroneously for a decade were cleaned up on my watch.”

In his deposition, Love said he has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against the district, alleging that he was retaliated against because he said he’d testify truthfully in Shaw’s pending lawsuit.