Daily Archives: June 11, 2012

Former KXAN weathercaster Rhonda Lee has sued station, accuses it of bias.

Austin’s NBC affiliate has been hit with a pair of lawsuits.

One accuses KXAN of racial discrimination; the other alleges the station aired a libelous report.

Eric Lassberg, president and general manager of KXAN, did not respond to a request for comment on the two cases.

Michael Fabac, who spent about five years as news director is, as of this week, no longer with the station, newsroom staffers said.

Former weekend morning weathercaster Rhonda Lee filed the discrimination suit in U.S. District Court in Austin.

Now at KTBS in Shreveport, La., Lee, who is black, said she was fired in August after being "repeatedly subjected to crude and insensitive remarks about her race," according to court documents.

Lee also said in the suit that she was left out of advertisements and station events, such as KXAN’s fall premiere party. When she asked why, she was told "she was not marketable to the audience the company was trying to reach, which was Caucasian males," the lawsuit said.

The weathercaster, who was employed by KXAN for slightly more than a year, said she was denied "employment opportunities" as well. When Lee voiced her concerns, they were "dismissed without serious consideration," the filing said.

Her termination "constituted retaliation for Plaintiff’s failure to keep quiet about the discrimination against her by KXAN-TV personnel," according to the suit.

Court records indicate Lee is seeking "appropriate back pay and reimbursement for lost pension, insurance, and all other benefits," as well as punitive damages, fees for her attorneys and expert witnesses, and court costs.

The unrelated libel suit was filed in state District Court in Travis County by Shelia White, who produced the Austin Women’s Expo through her company Exposition & Festivals Inc.

The American-Statesman was unable to reach White.

In court documents, White said a "damaging and hurtful" story that aired on KXAN was defamatory and libelous, wrongly accusing her of "criminal misconduct" and causing her and her business "embarrassment and ostracization within the community."

The station’s report was viewable, on air and online, by potentially "hundreds of thousands of people," White said in the lawsuit.

The story was apparently prompted by a May 12, 2011, news release from the Austin office of the Better Business Bureau headlined, "Businesses Risk Losing Thousands in Possible Tradeshow Scam."

A somewhat similar release was issued by the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama, in conjunction with the Huntsville, Ala., police department, on June 3, 2011.

The Austin Better Business Bureau is listed as a co-defendant in the case. A spokeswoman said the bureau had not yet been served with the suit.

The release encouraged area businesses to "ignore advertisements and solicitations" from Exposition & Festivals Inc.

It said, in part, "Businesses complain that they paid the company hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of dollars up front for booth reservations only to learn later the tradeshow was canceled or delayed for months."

"It appears as though the tradeshows were never intended to be held," the Better Business Bureau said, "leaving businesses that paid to participate without any return on their investments."

White said that’s untrue. She said in the suit that she paid more than $5,000 to host a show at the City of Austin’s Palmer Events Center and that she "had no businesses who paid to participate without any return on their investments for a tradeshow in Austin."

The release indicates a Palmer Events Center representative said the venue "refused to ever host the show due to complaints from local vendors and previous problems scheduling events for this company."

Palmer Events Center never refused to host the expo, the suit said. Officials there would not identify the employee who reportedly spoke to the Better Business Bureau, White said in the suit, which also lists the city as a co-defendant.

"The City of Austin is aware of the lawsuit but has not yet been served," the city said in a statement. "We are working to determine the validity of the allegations brought forth within the suit and will take action regarding the matter through the appropriate legal channels should the issue move further."

White is seeking compensation for actual damages, according to the court filing, as well as punitive damages and court costs.

http://www.statesman.com/business/kxan-accused-of-racial-discrimination-libel-in-2-2374643.html

A high school teacher and coach has sued the Frisco Independent School District for racial discrimination and retaliation following a dispute over management of the boys and girls track teams.

Alvin Jackson, a World History teacher who also coaches basketball and track at Frisco High School, filed the suit on May 22 in U.S. District Court in Sherman after being notified earlier this year that his contract would not be renewed.

Mr. Jackson, the only African-American coach and core-subject teacher at Frisco High, received a Right to Sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after filing a formal complaint over a racially hostile work environment.

"Al Jackson ran headlong into a ‘good ol’ boy’ network, plain and simple," says attorney Joe Kendall of the Kendall Law Group in Dallas, who represents Mr. Jackson. "Someone in Frisco decided they could push him out because of the color of his skin. The law – and common decency – says you can’t do that."

According to the lawsuit, problems began shortly after Mr. Jackson arrived at Frisco High in September 2010 and was assigned to coach the girls track team alongside longtime boys track coach Sam Reiter. Before then, the two teams had practiced together, but Mr. Jackson says that once he arrived, Mr. Reiter insisted the two teams train separately.

When Mr. Jackson complained about the new arrangement and his concern that it might be racially motivated, he was told not to file a formal complaint. Afterward, several school officials conducted classroom evaluations and found that Mr. Jackson "suddenly performed below expectations in a majority of the areas," according to the claim. Mr. Jackson’s prior job reviews graded him as either proficient or better in all areas.

In January 2012, Mr. Jackson was told by Frisco High Principal Sylvia Palacios that he was not a "good fit" and suggested that he resign in exchange for a letter of recommendation. Mr. Jackson later was told that his contract would not be renewed for the 2013 school year.

The Kendall Law Group is a trial firm that represents people in lawsuits against companies, in cases involving employment discrimination, securities fraud and other issues. Visit the firm’s website at http://www.kendalllawgroup.com .

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/teacher-sues-frisco-school-district-for-racial-discrimination-2012-05-30

A coalition of environmental groups is alleging that California’s Cap and Trade program violates the 1964 Civil Rights act.

The groups filed a complaint Friday against the California Air Resources Board charging that minority groups will be disproportionately harmed by the program that allows polluters to discharge more emissions by buying credits from other less-polluting industries.

The complaint alleges that African-Americans, Latinos and Asians are more likely to live in the low-income neighborhoods near refineries and power plants and will not receive the benefit of emission reductions intended under Cap and Trade.

The groups are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to intervene. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/06/coalition-calif-air-regulations-are-racial-discrimination

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has awarded a Vancouver city employee $5,000 after ruling the city retaliated against him after he filed a human rights complaint.

In a recent decision, tribunal member Enid Marion found that the complaint of racial discrimination made by Umesh Pathak was not proved. But she did find that Pathak’s complaint of retaliation was proved against the City of Vancouver and a former senior manager, Ray Stensrud.

Marion ordered the city to rescind the five-day work suspension imposed on Pathak in 2008, remove the letter of suspension from his employment file and reimburse him any lost salary or benefits resulting from his suspension.

The tribunal member found the suspension "meted out to Mr. Pathak was, at least in part, in retaliation for his filing of the human rights complaint."

Dan Soiseth, Pathak’s lawyer, said today that his client was disappointed with the decision on his racial discrimination complaint but pleased about the ruling on his retaliation complaint.

Pathak alleged in his complaint that he was passed over for a promotion to a management position in 2006 because of racial discrimination.

The complainant, who was born in India and came to Canada in 1976, has been working for the City of Vancouver since 1999.

He had worked since 2004 as a full-time "residence attendant" at the Old Continental, a residence operated by the city, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to be promoted to a resident manager for more than 10 years.

Over the years, Pathak has worked at other residences as an RA — Oppenheimer Lodge, Granville Residence, the New Continental and Roddan Lodge — and had worked as a temporary resident manager at various times.

At the time, Stensrud was the director of non-market operations, responsible for the operation of up to 10 residential facilities located between the Downtown Eastside and downtown South, which house about 820 people.

"Apart from some initial positive comments about Mr. Pathak, Mr. Stensrud demonstrated tangible animosity and disrespect towards Mr. Pathak at many points in his evidence," the tribunal member said of Stensrud’s testimony, which came after he retired in April 2010.

Wendy Stewart, assistant director of corporate communications for the City of Vancouver, said the city will thoroughly review the tribunal’s decision before deciding whether to appeal.

"The city is committed to a workplace that embraces diversity, is free of discrimination and embraces human resources excellence and improvement," she said.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/City+Vancouver+retaliated+against+worker+after+filed+discrimination+complaint+tribunal/6765239/story.html#ixzz1xXp9Yfz5

United Airlines was sued Tuesday in California by 24 African-American employees, including three Illinois pilots, claiming the company discriminated against them because of their race.

United allegedly violated federal and state laws by maintaining policies that have a disparate impact on African-Americans’ opportunities for promotions, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

“The company’s employment policies involve uncontrolled subjective criteria that are applied in an arbitrary manner, further promoting racial biases and stereotypes to the detriment of many extremely qualified management candidates,” plaintiff Capt. Fred Robinson said separately in a prepared statement.

United said in a statement, “United does not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind. We believe this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend ourselves.”

Twenty two of the 24 plaintiffs are African-American captains and two are African-American operations supervisors who claim they have been illegally passed over for promotions since 2009.

“The struggle for inclusion at United Airlines is a long-standing issue that many have tried to address over a long period of time,” said plaintiff Capt. Leon Miller, also in a prepared statement.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-29/business/chi-suit-alleges-racial-discrimination-by-united-airlines-20120529_1_racial-discrimination-african-american-employees-united-airlines

New research by University of Manchester academics has revealed that just 22 Liverpudlian teachers are from an Afro-Caribbean background, out of a total of 4,192.

Professor Bill Boyle and Marie Charles say the underrepresentation of Afro-Caribbeans from Europe’s oldest black community in education – and throughout local government in the city – is ‘scandalous’ and needs urgent action.

Their study reviews black representation in the Liverpool teaching and council workforce between 2003 and 2010, revisiting the 1989 Gifford report, commissioned by the Thatcher Government in the wake of the 1981 Toxteth riots.

The research is published in the latest issue of Journal of Education policy.

Lord Gifford found that racial discrimination had been "uniquely horrific" in Liverpool, forcing the council to adopt a 10% target for black employment across all Liverpool council departments.

But according to the researchers, only 0.5% of Liverpool’s teachers in 2010 are from the black community – a figure which has not changed since Gifford say the researchers. The black population of Liverpool is over 2% of the city’s total.

Government Department of Education data show that in 2010, Liverpool employed two black Caribbean teachers, two black Africans, 12 from other black backgrounds, one white/black Caribbean and five white/black Africans.

The figures- say the team – compare poorly to other parts of the country, especially Inner London and Outer London where 11% and 5% of the teaching workforce are black respectively.

The ethnicity data of the Liverpool Council workforce in 2010 also reveals that only 2% of the Liverpool Council’s workforce is black, well below the 10 per cent target.

Professor Boyle said: “Liverpool is a city which has long viewed black children as an educational problem and a threat to the educational standards of the white community.

“There is no significant black presence within the Council’s structure, its education department nor within the school governance, management or teaching system.

“This is scandalous in a city which has had an Afro-Caribbean community for over 400 years – probably Europe’s oldest.”

He added: “It does seem the authorities accept this discriminatory teaching workforce data and are showing reluctance to address ways to alleviate it.

“Our task was made much harder because Liverpool has consistently failed to collect ethnicity data despite the legal requirement of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000).

“Does the black population have to remain invisible and disempowered by this white hegemony for another 20 years before anything is done?”

More information: ‘In my Liverpool home’: an investigation into the institutionalised invisibility of Liverpool’s black citizens is published in the Journal of Education Policy.

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-discrimination-liverpool-widespread.html

SunTrust Mortage has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in its lending practices against Hispanics and African Americans.

This is the second-largest fair lending settlement ever obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice.

A complaint filed by the department in U.S. District Court in Richmond said SunTrust Mortgage charged more than 20,000 black and Hispanic borrowers more than similarly qualified non-Hispanic white borrowers between 2005 and 2009.

Minority borrowers in 75 geographic markets stretching from Virginia Beach to San Francisco paid more in loan fees or higher interest rates based solely on race or national origin, according to the complaint.

The consent order filed along with the complaint says SunTrust Mortgage denied wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement to avoid expensive and potentially risky litigation.

"SunTrust strongly believes in the principles of fair lending," company spokesman Mike McCoy in Atlanta said. "We are pleased to have reached a settlement and put this matter behind us."

Thomas E. Pérez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said the agreement is second only to last year’s record $335 million fair-lending settlement with Countrywide.

"At the core of the complaint is a simple story: If you were African-American or Latino, you likely paid more for a SunTrust loan than a similarly qualified white borrower simply because of your skin color," Pérez said in a teleconference with reporters. "You paid what amounted to a racial surtax that ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars."

The department began its investigation based on a referral from the Federal Reserve, which reviewed the Richmond-based mortgage company’s compliance with the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The department said it reviewed more than 850,000 residential mortgage loans originated by SunTrust between 2005 and 2009.

According to the complaint, SunTrust set prices based on objective credit-related criteria but allowed its own loan officers as well as its national network of brokers to adjust those prices without regard to borrower risk, often resulting in black and Latino customers paying more than white borrowers. SunTrust "incentivized discrimination" by sharing the inflated charges with those loan officers and brokers, Pérez said.

Brokers generally extracted larger overpayments, he said. For example, Latino customers in Dallas borrowing $200,000 through a broker paid about $1,360 more than similarly qualified white borrowers while black customers in Atlanta were charged about $745 more than white voters.

Those minority borrowers had no idea white customers with similar credit would pay less, Pérez said.

"That is discrimination with a smile," he said.

Authorities said SunTrust fully cooperated in the investigation and has since adopted policies and procedures to prevent discrimination.

"They should be commended for recognizing there were problems in their own house and taking steps to clean those up," said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride.

The settlement, which is subject to court approval, requires the lender to continue operating under those nondiscrimination policies.

According to the consent decree, SunTrust will be required to put the $21 million into an interest-bearing escrow account. Borrowers in 34 states and the District of Columbia who paid too much will be contacted. Any money left over after borrowers are compensated will be distributed to fair-housing and credit-counseling organizations.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/06/01/suntrust-mortgage-settles-racial-discrimination-complaint-for-21m/

Two weeks ago the news from the Census Bureau that non-white children make up the majority of those under the age of one year created a firestorm of media headlines across the nation. These demographic shifts have many implications for our nation, but my first thought was this: The majority of the babies being born in the US are now at serious risk for a whole host of maternal, fetal, and infant health problems.

Why? Because women of color have significantly higher rates of pre-term birth, low-infant birth weight, maternal, and fetal mortality.

Race-based maternal health disparities are no longer a concern of the minority — they are a concern of the majority. And they should be a top priority. According to Amnesty International’s 2010 report, African American women are four times more likely to die during childbirth than white women, a rate that has not improved in over 20 years. Data from 2008 showed that African American women also had an infant mortality rate that was twice that of white women. While only comprising 16 percent of births, African-American women experienced 30.4 percent of the infant deaths.

Similar statistics and disparities exist for Native American women, Asian Pacific Islanders and Latinas to varying degrees — but with few exceptions, the rates for all these groups are higher than for white women. The United States lags behind 49 other countries in our maternal mortality rates, and 40 other countries in our infant mortality rates, a fact that was reiterated in an article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. The piece was a profile of Ina May Gaskin, famous for her work promoting out of hospital birth as a midwife in rural Tennessee. What the article neglected to talk about, however, was maternal health disparities for women of color.

The cause of race-based maternal health disparities is likely complex and intimately connected to issues of poverty, racism, and quality of health care. For many advocates like Gaskin, the midwifery model of maternity care is an often-touted way to address these disparities. I myself, as a doula and frequent writer about the connections between race and maternal health, have explored how the midwifery model, which emphasizes patient-centered care and utilizes fewer interventions, could successfully reduce these disparities.

In order to truly address these long-term and seriously detrimental race-based maternal health disparities, we need to make room for innovation. Our current model is broken. It’s failing us. That model is one that is dominated by hospital birth (98 percent of all births in the United States happen in hospitals) and are attended by obstetricians likely using interventions. The place where that innovation is most desperately needed is Medicaid-funded maternity care. According to Amnesty International, “Medicaid pays for over 40 percent of births in the United States, and costs related to pregnancy and birth account for over one quarter of all hospital charges billed to Medicaid.”

There is evidence to back the claim that midwifery care could be the innovation we need to improve maternity care, especially for women of color. Jennie Joseph, a midwife in Orlando Florida who runs a birth center and maternal health clinic, says she’s almost eliminated the maternal health disparities typically seen in her low-income Black and Latina patients. Recent findings by the American College of Nurse-Midwives also showed improved outcomes with midwifery care.

But the problem is that midwifery in the United States just isn’t reaching women of color. Recent data from the CDC showed a 29 percent increase in the number of women having home births — but the vast majority of that increase was due to white women choosing home birth. Many have also pointed out that midwifery care won’t be accessible to women of color until midwives themselves are more representative of the communities they are trying to reach. It remains an overwhelmingly white profession, and for those midwives of color who have ventured into the field, challenges abound. Around the same time the census data was released, a group of midwives of color resigned from the leadership of the Midwives Alliance of North America, one of the main professional associations for midwives in the United States. Their resignation, explained in their letter to the MANA leadership, named instances of institutional racism and ongoing frustrations within the organization.

Claudia Booker, an African American midwife in Washington DC who was among those who resigned, talked with me about a bigger challenge — one that will affect any maternal health providers who want to work with low-income populations and communities of color: the business model. She explained that Medicaid and its reimbursement fees make it almost impossible for the midwives of color she knew to stay in business while serving primarily low-income women of color. Out-of-hospital midwives receive just $1200 for each Medicaid birth, which includes all pre-natal visits and the labor itself. That’s in contrast to the $4,000 that midwives charge individuals for similar services.

Other medical providers are able to cater to Medicaid patients, but the thing that keeps them in business is volume. If they can handle many patients in a day, than the lower reimbursement rates can be counteracted. The problem, Booker explained, is that having a high volume practice goes against the midwifery model.

“If we were able to give quality care to clients at 45 minutes each, and be able to handle enough clients to live well, then Medicaid would be the answer for us. But we can’t do that. You just can’t say your five minutes are up and you’re gone.”

It’s this patient-centered and time-intensive care that may be the key to eliminating disparities, but the Medicaid system leaves little room for this kind of practice. That means that a maternal health model of care that could eliminate disparities might never reach the population that most needs it.

I’m not the only one who believes we need innovation in maternal health. The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Innovation just announced 43 million in funding for new approaches to prenatal care that address the problem of premature births — something that leads to much higher mortality rates, and a host of other complications for newborns. But once again it looks like midwifery will be kept out of this discovery process — the only eligible providers are those who see at least 500 births per year — something that few midwifery practices or birth centers do. These requirements are based on the desire for statistically significant findings, but they might just exclude those who can actually produce the results they are seeking.

It’s hard to imagine that a medical provider who is forced to carry a high volume of clients will be able to provide the care necessary to eliminate race-based health disparities. If Medicaid doesn’t make room for alternative, potentially life-saving maternal health models, we risk endangering the health of generations to come. The challenges are clear, what we require are the innovative solutions. Our nation’s health depends upon it.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/05/30/maternity-care-in-majority-minority-country

For more than four decades, the notion that racism and physical prejudice don’t fully develop in humans until the teen or adult years has been at the root of research into racism. Popular scientific belief had been that children, who only develop the ability to express racial preferences at around age 3, gradually develop those preferences over time and only cement them well into their teen years.

But new research not yet published by Mahzarin Banaji, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, brain researcher, and racism and physical prejudice expert, and colleagues suggests that even though they may not understand the “why’’ of their feelings, children exposed to racism tend to accept and embrace it as young as age 3, and in just a matter of days.

“We have known for a very long time that children process information differently than adults. That is a given,’’ says Banaji. “But what has changed, where racism and other prejudice are concerned, is that we had far over-calculated how long it takes for these traits to become imbedded in a child’s brain. It’s quite shocking really, but the gist of it is that 3- and 4-year-olds demonstrate the same level and type of bias as adults. This tells us that children ‘get it’ very, very quickly, and that it doesn’t require a mature level of cognition to form negative biases.’’

Banaji’s study, conducted with two Harvard peers, examined how children and adults identified ambiguously featured faces as happy (smiling) or angry (frowning). They showed 263 white children, between the ages of 3 and 14, a number of graphically drawn facial images in different skin tones from very light tan to brown, and asked them to describe them as happy or angry.

One part of the test showed the children a set of faces that were an “inconclusive’’ light tan color that could have represented a white person or a black person. In that segment, most of the children, without prompting, described the faces as black, and also, no matter the facial expression in the drawing, as angry.

Conversely, those faces the children said they believed to be white – even the faces bearing frowns – were almost exclusively described as happy.

When the white children were asked to compare white faces with Asian faces, the outcome was the same: The Asian faces, and the faces that they perceived to be Asian, were described as angry. And the white faces were almost exclusively happy, the children said.

A group of black children tested in the study revealed equal favorability and negativity biases, regardless of whether they perceived the test faces to be black or white. In other words, the black children showed no pro-black or pro-white bias.

So the $64,000 question: Will the physical prejudices young children learn early in life stick with them into adulthood?

Maybe not.

“As children age, let us say past 10, environment begins to play a tremendous role in how they perceive in-group and out-group people – people who look like them, and people who do not,’’ Banaji says. “So the good news is that even a child whose parents make no conscious effort to teach [him] not to be prejudiced can shed that prejudice if he finds himself in a diverse enough place and consistently observes in-group and out-group people interacting positively and as equals.’’

“The odds of aging children losing or at the very least lessening their bias against out-group people are only increased, of course, when responsible adults in their lives consciously place their children in a position to see different groups interacting as equals,’’ Banaji adds.

“It is not the fault of the children that they grow up to see a majority of power and influence concentrated among one race,’’ she says. “So if we don’t act in their lives, as they age, to show context to that imbalance, they may continue to believe that one group is better or worse than the other, based on nothing more than color, features, or expressions.’’

http://www.boston.com/jobs/news/articles/2012/06/10/harvard_researcher_says_children_learn_racism_quickly/

Euro 2012 stars should be allowed to walk off the pitch if they are racially abused by fans, Clarke Carlisle, the chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said yesterday.

The first few days of the tournament in Poland and Ukraine have been marred by incidents of racism as Dutch players were taunted by local fans during an open training session.

There were also reports claiming Czech Republic defender Theodore Gebre Selassie was singled out for abuse by Russian supporters during Friday’s Group A match.

Carlisle, who plays for English Championship club Burnley, admits he would want to walk off the pitch if he received the kind of racist abuse that has become associated with fixtures in eastern Europe.

UEFA have warned that any players who walk off the pitch during Euro 2012 in protest at racial abuse will be handed a yellow card.

But Carlisle, 32, went to a domestic club match in Poland before the Euros and saw enough evidence of racism and hooliganism to back his belief that players should be able to act if they are targeted by racist thugs.

“The reality and what we are being told and is reported is vastly different,” he told Andrew Marr’s BBC TV programme yesterday.

“As a player, if you see that the officials aren’t handling the situation then you are well within your rights to walk off the pitch in my opinion.

“Nobody should be abused in their work place, especially not racially. We don’t want any form of discrimination at all in football.

“This is going to be a real test of UEFA to see if they have empowered their officials to take control of these situations.

“If you see that the referee is taking control of it.

“If he has stopped the game and it is one or two individuals and they are being sorted out, or if it is a group and he is taking the players off the pitch to sort it out, then you’d be happy because you know it is being dealt with.”

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120611/euro2012/Players-backed-in-racism-action.423785