KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday. April 8,1981 Vol. 91,No.128 USPS 650-640
Seven charge Med Center with discrimination Federal complaint system vexed by backlog
KANSAS CITY, Kan.-Black 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 CITY 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 cases have been dismissed without example, a 178 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 complainants not to comment on their complaints. One employee, who is no longer employed by the Center, could not be reached for comment.
ONE OF THE MEN who did not comment wrote in his complaint that he was verbally harassed by a white supervisor who walked into the country shop yelling "Nigger, nigger, niger."
An investigation into his complaint is pending. The three men who were willing to talk to the Kane were Norris Williams, 24, Jerry Taylor, 31, and Tara Gentry. 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
From the employees' racial discrimination complains, several allegations have surfaced:
- All three employees and other men with less
seniority and senatority promoted
over them.
- *Williams, a general maintenance repair technician*
*wrote that the supervisory duties was not paid in full.*
- Burkart, 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 positions. The firm said that violates Kansas civil service regulations.
- All three employees said they received negative progress reports for doing things for customers.
- All three employees said they received negative progress reports for doing things for customers.
ACTING KU CHANCELLOR Del Shankel said the administration had been involved in ensuring that discrimination was not occurring at the Med Center.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, cited a number of discriminatory practices.
Although Shankel said discrimination was not necessarily occurring, several officials at the Med Center confirmed that the allegations were true.
One practice mentioned was the lack of training educational opportunities for INMIRY employee.
However, Gloria Allen, director of employee education at the rmed Center, said officials were working to correct the lack of minority educational opportunities there.
By BRIAN LEVINSON Staff Reporter
SYSTEMIC-DISCRIMINATION complaints are similar to class-action law suits. They are complaintled by different people about the same problem, Welch said.
According to Welch, the reorganization includes a separate staff to handle only backlog cases, a rapid-charge system to handle more cases, and an efficient implementation on systematic discrimination complaints.
Staff Reporter
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 asynchronous discrimination." Welch said.
ONE REASON for the discrimination problems is the all-white administration of Facilities Operations, according to the officials. The high-ranking administrators in Facilities highest-ranking administrators in Facilities
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.
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.
Welch said the EEOC initiated 62 systemiccomplaint investigations in fiscal 1980.
"The EEOC feels the purpose of Title VII best served by pursuing systemic complaints instead of going after complaints one-by-one, in case with most of our complaints." Welch said.
Now the EEGO is investigating six complaints
bled by employees in Facilities operations at the MPM.
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 that he had been harassed ever since he testified for one of the block men at an EEO hearing.
DESPITE THE EEOC'S EFFORTS, Norris Williams, one of the three complainants, said he was unset that the EEOC just now was assigning
an investigator to his case—eight months after he filed his complaints.
Joe Doherty, director of the EEOC'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 Williams dated Aug. 27, 1980, from Clifford Hill, an EEOC supervisor in the Kansas City, Mo., office, the EOEC said it would be "appropriate processing" within 30 days.
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.
"When the EEOC reorganized in 1977, we moved backlog (cases) around to try to equalize the number of cases after office had," Welch said. "It used to take from two to three years until a time a complaint was filed until the charge was closed. Now, it is usually a matter of months."
Supervisor 1, the lower level, is a working supervisor. A Supervisor 2 performs more administrative duties. There are no black Supervisors. 12 supervisor is in eight areas, only five are black.
ANOTHER POSSIBLE reason for the delay in
See EEOC page 5
April, 1981
Another reason the officials mentioned for the existence of discriminatory practices was that equal employment opportunity and state civil services laws were not enforced.
application, they can tell me that a job has been closed and I have no way of knowing."
the cars were moved in
The advertise open positions in the Main-
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 EEEOC 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
Surrounding us are two publicists, representing Capitol Records and Muscle Shoals Sound Productions, the famed Alabama outfit where McClinton's new album, *The Jealous King* was produced. Singing dimly because it is Dana Sue McClinton's voice, the song "ifiammity," is equally silent, as McClinton's lean, intense road manager, Jack Borderson.
Ampersand
"And it didn't come a bit too early, either," says McClinton. "I knew all the records I did were good." he adds over a midwestern tonic water in a Beverly Hills cocktail lounge; but I was wonderin' if anyone else was ganna like it be? And I'm not sure how, now, naguachie clair. "I don't need that posthumous knack s - t I want it now."
See DISCRIMINATION page 5
I ask McClinton if he paid close attention to the slow, steady chart progress of "Giving it up for Your Love." a climb that saunted last fall.
"You bet your ass I did," he responds happily "I watched it everyday." He leans forward so his elbows prop solidly against his knees and he joins his loosely. "Getting a hit changes everything for me, really. I can make a lot of plans that I could only dream of before. In the first place, I won't have to work eight days a week just to make a living. I just had a three-week vacation, after working every day since October. I'd never had three weeks off before."
Three plans dominate McClinton's future, a major tour of the southwest and Midwest until May, a new album when that tour ends and — in between, somehow — moving self, wife Dona, six-year-old Gay and their elegant 1947 Chrysler from Fort Worth to the Pacific-facing canyons north of Los Angeles. "Fort Worth in the winter don't make it," says McClinton, "and there's a lot of people out here I want to work with."
Will he work again with Jerry Williams, author of the current hit?
Suddenly, McClintion remembers to tell his road manager that he accepted a date for June: the graduation party of a wealthy Austinite's daughter.
"Possibly. He's a very happy individual right now. The last time I talked to him, he was rains' hags and liven' in Hico, Texas."
"How much?" Borders demands
"Hell, Delbert. That's not enough. I gotta make a phone call."
As Borders pivots out of the bar, McClinton grins broadly. "Jack useta be a Marine," he explains.
McClinton started at age 19, leading a hot Fort Worth R&B and band called the Strait Jackets. Famous蓝歌手的 singles, like Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins and Jimmy Reed, were apt to choose McClinton's group for backup service. Boasts McClinton: "I still got a microphone Jimmy Reku naked on."
In 1960, McClinton's LeCam Records version of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Wake up Baby" became the first white artist's record on KNOK, the local black station. Coincidentally, "Giving It up for Your Love" is now an item on soul stations in the South.
In 1962, backing Bruce Channel on "Hey Baby" with his harmonica, McClinton toured England. A twenty-two-year-old John Lennon there sought him out for a backstage harp lesson. In 1964-65, as part of the Reno Dells, McClinton played the label and scratched the bottom of the charts if "You Finally Want Me To, I Did Go."
"Thought I'd be a star by today," lament s a song based on the Delbert and Glen experiences, "But I'm sweepin' out a warehouse in WLA." Fortunately, Emmyluo Harris lifts that song, the country rocker "Two More Bottles of Wine, off Victim of Life's Circumstances — one of a series of terrific but low-selling records McClintion did for ABC Records in 1975-76. Some long-term fans call this which also includes Genuine Cottonie and Love Rustler, the best of McClintion's work. In 2014, McClintion drew the ABC did little to popularize the albums. By time that hapless company got swallowed by the MCA Corporation, McClintion was out of the picture
Game the Seventies. McClinton riel Los Angeles. His two courtified, RB'd albums with keyboard player Glen Clark for Clean Records are now highly prized by collectors. Bonnie Raitt found the song 'Sugar Mama' on *DeLbert &* and then released it as a single called "Cold November," which remains one of McClinton's most affecting songs.
"I closed a lotta record companies," McClinton jokes. His next stop, in 1978, was Georgia's Capricorn Records. Once flourishing via the Allman Brothers and political help its owner had extended candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976, Capricorn Records had become one of the world's "Second Wind." brought out the rock writers in droves — myself included
"You may be talkin' to me in jail before the night is out," were the first spoken words I heard from Delbert McBurtch. Backstage at the Euphoria, a dingy, produce-district club in Portland, Oregon, he was fuming after a near punch-out with the club's boneheaded soundman. The owner told him to get out. punch-out with the club's boneheaded soundman. The owner told him to get out instead, McClinton stayed and came back the next night too, rigging his own sound system with Fender amps and playing an azar-short set that drew on everything from early Wavlon Jennings to Tai Malah.
"I thought I was a bad motherf----r that night," McClinton recalls with a wide
"I'm a victim of life's circumstances/ Raised around barrooms and Friday night dances/ Singin' them old Country songs/ Half the time endin' up some place I don't belong."
Delbert McClinton
smite. And IIGHT belief it woz oo . . . even if the mother—never paid me Capricorn folded its tents just as Keeper of the Flame, the second release, was making the charts. But important groundwork was laid. John Belushi and Dan Akrydog caught McCintland's New York club shows and joked about stealing his tight, versatile band for the Blues Brothers. Instead, they stole his "B Movie Box Car" because the triple platinum *Briefcase Flow* of *Blues album*. They also wang led an appearance date for McCintland, who can look rugogously sexy with half an effort, on Saturday Night Live.
smile. "And I got him believin' it too . . . even if the mother----r never paid me."
"Yeah," McClinton acknowledges, "that helped a lot. If it hadn't been for that publishing money, and my wife's help financially, I couldn't've done it." I think he must have been on the right side.
On the new album, McClinton sings songs previously done by Ray Charles, Al Green, the Tempations, Van Morrison and Joe Cocker. On past albums he's covered such heavy hitters as James Brown, Taj Mahal, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, and Lil Wayne, if he's either intimidated, knowing he'll be compared to such potent orators.
"No," McClinton says, "it doesn't bother me. Because if I can't do it, I won't." "Who," Jack Border shows with a satisfied gleam alight in his eyes. "What?"
$10,000.00." Borders say, settling back expensively with a fresh drink, "and after the gig they're lying to us for Fort Worth for some Messican food."
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New KU IDs should arrive bv summer
Dyck said he easily peeled apart the laminated sample ID card the company sent.
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.
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 right 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 it.
"But they told us that the sample card did that because it had been run through a laminating machine that was not not enough," he said. "I know that 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 $5 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 circles 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 emblazoned with your name."
See IDS page 5
will be partly cloudy today, with a high of 68 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.