KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday. April 8, 1981
Vol. 91, No. 128 USPS 650-640
Seven charge Med Center with discrimination
By BRIAN LEVINSON Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
KANSAS CITY, Kan.-Ban employees in the Facilities Operations department at the University of Kansas Medical Center have been verbally harassed and denied promotions by their white administrators and supervisors, while KANSAS Operations employees have told the Kansan.
At least seven of the 52 black employees in the Med Center Facilities Operations department have filed discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Yet many of the internal grievances and EEOC complaints have not been addressed, for example, a 17% complaint has yet to be acted on.
KU administrators, however, said that the mere filing of several complaints did not prove that discrimination was actually occurring at the Med Center.
Lawyers advised three of the seven Med Center complaints not to comment on their complains. One employee, who is no longer employed by the Med Center, could not be reached for comment.
ONE OF THE MEN who would not comment wrote in his complaint that he was verbally harassed by a white supervisor who walked into the country shop yelling "Nigger, nigerer, nigger."
An investigation into his complaint is pending. The three men who were willing to talk to the three men were Michael, 24, Jerry Taylor, 31, and Dennis Burkart, 34. All three are still employed at the Med Center.
Williams, who has worked at the Med Center for three and one-half years, and Taylor, who has
Taylor at a 1977 EECO hearing, which was decided in Taylor's favor.
From the employees' racial discrimination complaints, several allegations have surfaced.
- All three employees said other men with less experience and seniority received promotions only.
- Williams, a general maintenance repair technician was not paid supervised supervision.*
- Burkhard, a construction worker, said other men were hand-picked by white supervisors for jobs and promotions without having to apply for them.
- *Taylor, a maintenance carpenter, said that job openings in Facilities Operations were posted without opening or closing dates for the vacancies. In another case, that violates Kansas city civil service regulations.
- All three employees said they received negative progress reports for doing things for others.
• Only one employee received positive progress reports.
Although Shankel said discrimination was not necessarily occurring, several officials at the Med Center confirmed that the allegations were true.
The officials, who asked not to be identified,
cited a number of discriminatory practices.
One practice mentioned was the lack of training and educational opportunities for inmates.
However, the Gloria Allen, director of employee education at the med center, said officials were working to correct the lack of minority educational opportunities there.
By BRIAN LEVINSON
Federal complaint system vexed by backlog
Staff Reporter
KANSAS CITY, Kan.-The discrimination complaints filed by Facilities Operations employees at the University of Kansas Medical Center have revealed several problems with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's complaint system.
The EEOC's inability to keep up with its complaint backlog forced it to reorganize in 1977, when it had 100,000 cases, Reginald Welch, public information officer for the EEOC in Washington, D.C., said. The EEOC reduced the backlog to 30,000 cases.
According to Welch, the reorganization included a separate staff to handle only backlog cases, a rapid-charge process to handle more transactions and an enterprise-wide phasen on systematic-discrimination complaints.
SYSTEMIC-DISCRIMINATION complaints are similar to class-action law suits. They are complaintled by different people about the same problem, Welch said.
as to where they could get help in studying for the GED (graduate equivalency diploma). Now, we are looking into offering a basic studies program and a GED class for all employees."
"The whole purpose of the reorganization was to clear out the backlog and streamline our intake process, so that we could dedicate more time to systemic discrimination," Welch said.
Now the EECO is investigating six complaints by employees in Facilities Operation at the Med.
Welch said the EEOC initiated 62 systemic complaint investigations in fiscal 1980.
ONE REASON for the discrimination against Facilities Operations, according to the officials. Employee records indicate that the seven highest-ranking administrators in Facilities Operations were discriminated against.
"The EEOC feels the purpose of title VII is best served by pursuing systemic complaints instead of going after complaints one-by-one, is the case with most of our complaints." Welch
Three of the six complainants said they were harassed and were denied promotions by their supervisors for racial reasons. Two of the men are black and the other is white. The white man said that he had been harassed ever since he testified for one of the black men at an EEOC hearing.
DESPITE THE EEOC'S EFFORTS, Norris
williams, one of the three complainers, said he
would have liked a separate debate.
Supervisor 1, the lower level, is a working supervisor. A Supervisor 2 performs more administrative duties. There are no black Supervisor 2s. Of 32 supervisor in 18 areas, only one
Another reason the officials mentioned for the existence of discriminatory practices was that equal employment opportunity and state civil service laws were not enforced.
an investigator to his case-eight months after he filed his complaints.
Welch said one possible reason Williams' complaint was just now being assigned to an investigator was that the different district offices had different-sized backlogs.
Joe Doherty, director of the EOEC's Kansas City office, said that under federal law he could not comment on the complaints or evenudge that a particular complaint had been filed.
However, in a letter to Watkins dated Aug. 27, 1980, from Clifford Hill, an EOEC supervisor in the Kansas City, Mo., office, the EOEC said it "for appropriate processing" within 30 days.
"When the EEOC reorganized in 1977, moved backlog (cases) around to try to equalize the number of cases each office had," said it. "It used to take from two to three years from the time a complaint was filed until the case was closed. Now, it is usually a matter of months."
ANOTHER POSSIBLE reason for the delay in
SEE EOBC page 5
They advertise open positions in the Main-
April.1981
application, they can tell me that a job has been closed and I have no way of knowing,"
THE POSTING OF OPENING AND CLOSING dates for open civil service positions is required by Kansas personnel regulations. The regulation states that "the director (of a department) shall prescribe the period during which applications will be accepted."
Since the EEOC complaints were filed, the job posting problems have been corrected and the employee education department has started a class for managers. The class is designed to help
Ampersand
& OUT THE OTHER
See DISCRIMINATION page 5
REPORTS that Mick Fleetwood has ended his fourteen year stay with Fleetwood Mac can be substituted. They started when it was revealed the lanky drummer was pursuing a solo project called Mick Fleetwood's African Odyssey. Fleetwood has been spending considerable time in Ghana, working with guitarist Todd Sharp (of the Bob Welch band), plus numerous Ghanaian musicians. The group is the Musician's Union, held February 21, will be televised on PBS channels, together with footage on the making of the album.
Big Business
RANGES COPPOLA Zoetrope Studio is still in business, thanks to a $50,000 anymous loan (reportedly from Noran Lear) and $8 million from Canadian real estate whiack J Singer (who now has his own office at Zoetrope); Singer says he'll see it that there enough cash for Coppola to finish 'One from the Heart.'
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX is facing a major change: ourbuy purchase by Denver oilman Marvin Davin (a pal of Ford and Kissinger) whose estimated *weekly* income exceeds $1 million. If Davis goes through with the stock purchase, 20th will then be a private company, no longer open to public scrutiny.
Stung
WALTER ANNENBERG, the man behind TV Guide and one of the men behind President Reagan, has pledged $15 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP) in its new fund, seems only fair, now that Reagan has slashed funding for public radio and television.
'D INSTANCE ON FILM - A Forum on Animation and Fantasy Filmmaking in the 80s' is currently touring 31 universities across the country, featuring animators and live-action experts, filmed comments from Kirk Doug las, Ray Bradbury, Shelley Duvall, etc., and previews of upcoming Disney features (like The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cadair, and live action clips from Poppe, Dead and Buried, Never Cry Wolf, etc.).
TING OF THE POLICE could be a movie star. She's seriously discussing a TV movie called Parole and a Stigwood film called Bitte my Guitar Gentle Weeps, in which he sings as a guitarist whose hands are broken by thugs (Sting appeared briefly in Quadrophenia) this film is not based on the George Harrison song, but on a book by Paul Breeze (and his son has no involvement in this film, according to Stigwood executive Beryl Virtue.
KIM PRING, Miss Wyoming of 1978, picked up a bigger prize recently; a $26,500,000 judgment against *Penthouse magazine* and writer Philip Ciofari According to Pring, there were too many similarities for comfort between herself and the heroine of "Miss Wyoming Saves the World," an August, 1979 short story by Ciofari about a baton-twirling beauty queen. Especially galloping to Gring to present the fictional character's sexual turns with contest judges and various others.
Something New for the Midnight Show
SPEED TO The Rocky Horror Picture Show. is due soon, called *Sock Treatment* also produced by Lou Adler Brad and Janet Witty. It stars *Memories* and Cliff of Young) try their luck on several TV game shows like *Save Your Marriage* and *Are You a Psychobat?*. One of the hosts hats after Janet and tries to get her back, but an insane assylum You've been warned.
Who's in What
BETTE MIDLER will star in a Las Vegas romance (she'll sing a couple of songs) called Jackpot, the producers want Richard Gere to costar (who doesn't)*. Natalie Wood and Tim Hutton will be in *Twin of a Kid*, about an older woman novelist's relationship with an aspiring young writer Sally Field plays a nighclub singer in *A Princess who* falls in love with a 15-year-old boy. She stars in *The Verdict*, in which he plays a Boston lawyer who is ostracized by polite society when he accepts a medical malpractice suit
David Naughton, the dancing fellow in all those Dr. Pepper commercials, stars with Jenny Agutter in An American Werewolf in London, directed by John Lindsay, about a man who becomes an American college student who is attacked by an unbeknownst beast on the moors one night.
THE OTT POSTPONED film biography of Ghendi is about to start with an Anglo Indian, Ben Kingsley, in the title role (after Mr. Baxter), and he is played like John Hurt). Candice Bergen will play Life photographer Margaret Bourke-William Martin Sheen also stars, and is donating his salary to CONCERN, an Irish-based orphanage that helps children to be able to add impowered Third World nations.
J. Nackisz's music for the film *Cutter G. Bone* (Remember last Mast. Jeff's Bridge glasses) uses a aether and water-filled glasses (played by Erik Harry) and is reportedly dazzling
**CHEVY CHASE** has been busy in spite of bawly reviews for *Caddisblow* (which was released year) and *So Seems Like Old Times* hits爽 in *Over the Rainbow* (nicknamed
Chasing Chase
WE HEAR THAT Debbie Harry's solo album will be produced by Rogers and Niles (the guys who did Chic, Diana Ross, etc) and will be most, if not all, RBW
"Over the Budget," since it is), about the making of *The Wizard of Oz*, specifically the casting of all those Munchkins (Carrie Fisher costars as a non-Munckin); next Chase will do *Modern Problems*, co-starring Patti D'Arbanville, described briefly as "about telekinesis." Let's hope it's better than *The Fury*
Last Month's Changes
FITZCARRALDO, the Peru location film on star Mark Jagger, is currently on hold because co-star Jason Rohards came down with dysentery and had to cancel. If director Werner Herzog does not find a replacement for production may close down all together.
And Trapa the James Clavell epic that has been on off and off and on, is once again the best.
THE WINNER of last year's Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Student Film Award in the Documentary Achievement Category was Karl Hess 'Toused Liberty' by Roland Halle and Peter W. Laude, while they were students at Boston University. The same film is currently nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Achievement in Documentary Film. Short Subject category Huzzah, congratulations, and we'll all be watching the televised ceremony March 30. Deadline (each year) for the Academy student film competition is April. Check later on for details, or write to Karen Anndellovich, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211.
ROGER CORMANS New World Pictures will release Planet of Horrors this summer, an Altenore journey to a distressed planet, with pyramids thrown in for good measure Corman also plans a film called Shopping Center to be made in Houston during startling roles to all menbers of the Doobie Brothers, but nothing is definite yet.
IT COMBINES TWO THINGS I've always found appealing, trading cards and old blues singers'. R. Crumb, probably the most influential of the "underground" cartoonist, is describing Heroes of the Blues, a set of illustrations he made of country blues artists of the Twenties. Thirties, Forties and Fifties. Mounted like bubblegum trading
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Attention Student Filmmakers
Pick a Card
cards. Heroes of the blues comes in a boxed set of 36 and is sold in various record shops and comic book stores. Guys like Clifford Gibson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and BoeWelwil Jackson are represented. The lone woman is Memphis Minnie who cut more than 150 records, including "Bumble Bee Woman." Because the cards are hot sellers, Crumb's planning a series on old jazz artists and another on old Country & Western stars.
R. I.P.
The man Guitar Player Magazine called 'barron School of the Blues' died in San Francisco of unknown causes. His body was taken to a car on the morning of Sunday, February 15.
**CRITICS CALLED Michael Bloomfield a bizarre figure, whose vas potential has remained irritatingly unfulfilled. That might have been his epiphach, except for two brand new releases reportedly worthy of Bloomfield's copious talents.**
"He was up, he was fantastic, there was absolutely no depression," says Norman Dayron, Bloomfield's neighbor, producer and dose friend since college days. "The new records were his best art, better than anything he'd ever recorded before."
Son of a wealthy industrialist, Bloomfield was hooked on the blues via radio. As a teenager he jammed with giants like Muddy Waters and Magic Sam, Howlin Wolf and Dusty Springer, but real Bad Butterfield Blues Band, Electric Flag and the high-selling Super Session albums.
Bloomfield's guitar led Bob Dylan into the electric age on "Like a Rocking Stone," Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Bluebone but his favorite recording remained You Lose These Blues, Play Em & You The Blues. He then instructed instructional album for guitars.
INFLATION IS RAMPANT,
OIL IS RUNNING OUT,
WAR LOOMS ON DA
HORIZON! ENTRYPO
THREATENS DAUNIVERSE
WIT TOTAL COLLAPSE!
New KU IDs should arrive by summer
The University of Kansas should have its fifth student identification card in 15 years by late this spring or early summer, Gil Dyck, director of admissions and records, said yesterday.
Dyck said he easily peeled apart the laminated sample ID card the company sent.
The date is uncertain, Dyck said, because KU is still considering bids for the work from various companies.
"Right now, the lowest bidder is Stik, Stip,
Inc., from somewhere in Texas," Dyck said.
"We will be awarding them the contract if we
have the highest cards are of the quality that they say they are."
THE LOGO on the current ID will not change,
but will be smaller on the new card to make room
for a new logo.
"But they told us that the sample card did that because it had been run through a laminating machine that was not hot enough," he said. "We wanted this, but this card is really a good one, we'll go with it."
Regardless of when the new cards arrive, they will cost $1.50, and $4 for each replacement, Dyck said. Purchasing new cards will be optional for students.
"We're not going to force anybody to get a new one," Dyck said. "If they want to keep the plastic IDs, they can. I have around 9,000 IDs that people didn't bother to pick up last year."
The last time KU obtained new student IDs was in the fall of 1979. The decision to switch again was made after several academic periods and Dyck's office for cards with pictures, he said.
"Last spring, we had several of the larger departments request that we go back to picture IDs because they were having problems controlling their larger exams," he said.
THE NEW CARD would differ from KU's current "credit card" model because it would be laminated and carry the student's picture, Dyck said.
"The card will have the same capabilities as the old card, except that it won't be embosed," Dyck said. "The library will still be able to opti
See IDS page 5
Weather
It will be partly cloudy today, with a high of 66 and winds from the northwest at 10 to 20 mph, according to the KU Weather Service. Skies will clear tonight, with a low of 40 and light and variable winds. Tomorrow's high will be around 70, under partly cloudy skies.