The music department at a Westchester liberal arts college operated more like a frat house than an academic proving ground for young musicians, a former staffer claims in a $1.5 million Manhattan federal lawsuit.
Decorated pianist Claudia Knafo claims that male brass at Manhattanville College called female students “little pink bunnies” — and salivated over their looks rather than their musical talents, according to court papers.
The department’s former chairman, Prof. Carmelo Comberiati, was even forced to step down in 2009 after making forbidden music with a female student, Knafo’s suit alleges.
The Michigan-educated music teacher claims that the predominately male faculty openly leered at students — and coldly retaliated against her when she blew the whistle on their boorish behavior.
Knafo claims that “the culture of the Music Department was that of a ‘boy’s club’ or a fraternity house in which women were relegated to second class status and routinely demeaned and objectified,” according to the suit.
Comberiati “linked appraisals of female students’ performing skills to their perceived level of attractiveness, frequently remarking at ‘piano juries’ that he did not listen to them play, so much as just look at them,” the suit claims.
Knafo and several female colleagues eventually made repeated complaints to school administrators beginning in 2006 but were ignored and then retaliated against, according to the suit.
Prof. Frank Brancaleone was named department chief after Comberiati’s ouster in 2009 and intensified Knafo’s mistreatment, the suit states.
He slashed her coursework without cause and even blasted her for missing time during a pregnancy and the sickness of another child, according to her suit.
With her pay whittled down, Knafo left the school in 2011 and is teaching elsewhere.
Manhattanville officials did not return a call for comment and Comberiati and Brancaleone did not return calls.