Frank Provenzo says his job interview at Christian Central Academy started with a prayer – not a silent one to himself hoping to be hired but a request from his interviewers to bow his head and join them in their invocation.
“I was taken aback,” said Provenzo, an Amherst resident applying for a facilities manager position. “Here I am ready for this interview, and I’m already shaken. What’s this all about?”
Provenzo, 59, said officials from the private Williamsville school also presented him a “faith agreement” to sign and questioned him about his faith and where he attended church.
He told them he was Catholic and that he was a parishioner at St. Gregory the Great Church in Amherst. Though surprised by the religious questions, he thought the interview with the handful of school officials went well. But he didn’t get the job.
A year later, the job interview that started in prayer has led to a probable cause finding by the state Division of Human Rights supporting Provenzo’s allegation the school unlawfully discriminated against him because of his creed.
Christian Central Academy declined to comment.
“It is our policy to refrain from commenting to the press on matters that are in litigation,” said attorney Timothy J. Graber, who represents the school.
‘Closer to our faith’
Ahead of his interview on July 14, 2022, the school officials did not mention any faith requirements for the job, though the questions at the interview rattled him, Provenzo told the Human Rights Division.
“They put this thing in front of me,” he said of the faith agreement the school officials presented him. “And what are you to do? You know, I wanted the interview. So I filled it out in good faith, no pun intended.”
A couple of days later, a school official called with the news he did not get the job.
“The board had nothing but rave reviews about you,” he recalled being told. “However, we decided to go with someone that is…
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