Plaintiffs claim the school had no HR department — and that the cuts landed hardest on staff of color
Six former employees at a Florida beauty school claim their workplace had no HR department — and that, in the months that followed, layoffs cut only workers of color.
The allegations surfaced on April 21, 2026, when the six filed separate lawsuits the same day in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Genesis Educational Services of Florida, Inc., which operates the Palm Beach Academy of Health & Beauty (PBA). See, for example, Chapman-Reese v. Genesis Educational Services of Florida, Inc., No. 9:26-cv-80446-DMM (S.D. Fla. filed Apr. 21, 2026). The plaintiffs — former campus director Avis Chapman-Reese, former campus registrar Gillian Williams, former director of career services Gwendolyn Tucker, former career services representative Nuwan Liyanapatabendi, former admissions coordinator and later career services representative James Scruggs, and former administrative assistant and later assistant campus registrar Takeria Ivory — bring claims under Title VII, the Florida Civil Rights Act, and, in two of the filings, the Florida Private Whistleblower Act. Each is seeking a jury trial.
What the plaintiffs describe is, in many ways, an HR textbook of what not to do. According to the filings, PBA had no human resources function at all, which, they claim, meant employees who wanted to report misconduct by the chief operating officer had to take their concerns to the COO herself. Ivory alleges she was groped three separate times in a hallway and asked, "Is your ass real?" She claims the incident report she filed internally was brushed aside with, "Oh well, she will get over it."
The race-related claims are just as pointed. Williams alleges she was told to falsify student records during an audit by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC); she claims that when she refused and answered the auditor truthfully, she was cornered in her office and told, "Why can't you people just do what you're told, like in the old days." Scruggs, who is Black, alleges management singled out his hairstyle as a dress-code issue while the COO and her son came to work in jeans, sneakers and cargo pants without comment.
Then came the layoffs. A wave of mid-November 2024 cuts framed by management as "budget cuts" was, the plaintiffs claim, deliberately timed to follow the ACCSC visit. According to the filings, every person let go was a person of color, and each was replaced by a white hire. Liyanapatabendi, who has a speech impediment and was terminated weeks earlier, alleges leadership refused to move him into an open admissions role because of how he spoke, and claims the job was then filled by the COO's own adult son.
For HR leaders, the complaints are a reminder of how quickly small cracks — no HR desk, written complaints that go nowhere, grooming policies applied unevenly, a restructure that happens to fall along racial lines — can compound into something a jury may see as a pattern.
None of the allegations have been tested in court. PBA has not yet filed a response, and no judge has ruled on any claim.
