Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in New York

I work for a county agency. All the people in the unit are full time permanent employees. One of my colleagues has despised me from the second I worked in almost four years ago. Maybe I look like his ex-wife-I do not know. Anyway, he has lied about me, told my supervisor he did not want me to have a better desk because "he did not want to look at me", called me "too WASPY", said that my kids must goosestep around the house (my kids went to a local language school just because I thought it was a good idea-and German happened to be the language available), and has stormed out of the office the minute I received a personal call, screaming, "I've had it." By the way, everyone in my unit gets more calls than I do. He will not even hand me documents we need to conduct business, preferring to wait and put them on my chair when I go to lunch. The man also is a bigot. Unfortunately, so are half the people in my unit. The other day the stuff three of them were saying about the Professor Gates incident made me sick to my stomach. My question is this: Can I secretly tape these discussions that are blatantly racist? And then can I take them to a civil rights attorney and sue or simply reveal them? My supervisor is useless; she promoted this man so that she then could be promoted herself. It is in her self-interest to protect him; and she is the only one she cares about. Also, the head of my agency is himself a racist-as I said, I have worked there almost four years and know the lay of the land. Do I have any recourse? I have requested a transfer to another unit, but it has been months and nothing has happened.

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