News

State Parks & Rec settles gender- and gay-bias claims
Business Management Daily
Sunday April 18th, 2010 1:00 AM
The California Department of Parks and Recreation recently settled a sexual harassment lawsuit brought in August of 2008 by a park ranger who argued that she was harassed and experienced gender and sexual-orientation discrimination during the six years she worked at San Onofre and San Clemente State Beaches.

Jennifer Donovan claimed co-workers posted obscene drawings and materials containing negative comments about homosexuals. She said they left underwear and sex toys in her locker.

The parks department didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing, but did agree to create a Women Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Task Force, which would include five members from various work classifications, including managers, administrators, maintenance workers, lifeguards and field rangers.

The task force is charged with improving gender, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender diversity among state park staff. During its four-year term, it will also promote visibility, leadership, recruitment, mentoring, training and networking for women and LGBT employees.

The department also agreed to conduct an internal audit of its equal employment opportunity processes to be completed within 12 months. Following the audit, the department will make recommendations for improving its EEO processes and procedures and will implement those recommendations within 24 months.

Employee Accuses Solano County Of Anti-Semitism

SOLANO (CBS13) ―

AP
A legal fight is brewing between a social worker and the county he works for. A local man says he's proud of his Jewish heritage and proud of his faith. But, he claims because of discrimination he's been experiencing since 2005, he's lost faith in Solano County and now he's suing. CBS13's Ron Jones investigates.

"I have nobody to go to. It's very difficult, it's very difficult. It makes it difficult to get up in the morning," says Nathan.

Nathan Hansford is a Social Services worker for Solano County. He helps rescue abused children, and today he believes he needs rescuing from his supervisors.

"Most days I'd rather not be there," says Nathan.

Because of his Jewish faith, Nathan says he's been the target of blatant discrimination.

He claims his supervisors are not honoring his commitment to the Jewish Sabbath by making him work late Friday nights and Saturday mornings.

He also says they have questioned some of his religious clothing.

But, the most shocking allegations is that he says one employee made anti-Semitic comments in casual conversations, but nothing was done.

In this complaint he says the co-worker told another," The Jews are the problem with the world because they start all the wars and kill Arab babies."

And on another occasion, he says an employee asked a Rabbi who there," When are you people going to find Jesus?"

Nathan complained to his supervisors, and he says he ignored it.

"That's a horrible thing to say. And I was told to mind my own business. That it didn't concern me," Nathan explains.

Carolee Kilduff represents the county and says that was," absolutely not the case."

She says Nathan never personally heard the comments, but found out second-hand. She also says this is not about discrimination or the Sabbath, but work ethics.

"There were a few occasions where he worked past sundown. The nature of social work is that it sometimes, like in your work job and in my job sometimes we have to work after hours to get the job done," explains Carolee.

"The county must be held accountable," says Nathan's attorney, Wendy Mussel.

Nathan's attorney says after years of discrimination, they're suing.

"After repeatedly requesting an accommodation to observe the Sabbath he was repeatedly subjected to different work rules and discipline," says Mussel.

"I want to help families and I want to help children and I want to make a difference in our community. But who helps me?" asks Nathan.

The County is standing by its statement and Hansford is standing by the allegation. The final determination as far as who's right or wrong probably won't be determined for another two years when they go to court.

Sex Assault and Violence at KPFA
Friday September 5th, 2008 12:13 PM
KPFA and Pacifica Foundation faces yet another case alledging violence and discrimination in the workplace. Today MAYA OROZCO, a former administrative and production assistant at KPFA, filed a civil rights lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court alleging sexual assault, sexual harassment, retaliation, negligent supervision and hiring and wrongful termination against KPFA and Pacifica Foundation. Recurring allegations to Pacifica are refusal to investigate discrimination complaints, refusal to discipline perpetrators, and fostering an environment of impunity.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: September 5, 2008
Stewart & Musell
Wendy E. Musell, Esq. 415-593-0083 (office)
Elisa J. Stewart, Esq.

Sex Assault and Violence at KPFA

Today MAYA OROZCO, a former administrative and production assistant at KPFA, filed a civil rights lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court alleging sexual assault, sexual harassment, retaliation, negligent supervision and hiring and wrongful termination against KPFA and Pacifica Foundation.

Recurring allegations to Pacifica are refusal to investigate discrimination complaints, refusal to discipline perpetrators, and fostering an environment of impunity. The suit alleges that after reporting for the third time a sexual battery perpetrated by a member of KPFA Apprenticeship Program, Orozco’s work performance suddenly became the subject of criticism. Orozco alleges that an apprentice at KPFA sexually assaulted her on two occasions. After reporting the sex assaults to KPFA management, KPFA and Pacifica Foundation’s response was to reprimand Orozco and told her that she could be banned from the building. Orozco later discovered that despite a history of alleged sexual battering, the employee that assaulted her had been promoted by KPFA to work off-site, where the employee would not be subject to supervision.

When a new General Manager was appointed, Roy Campanella, Orozco again voiced her complaints. Campanella responded that he could not do anything because the employee’s work was not performed on KPFA premises. Again, no investigation and no further action were taken. At the time that Campanella made these statements, he was under investigation for sexual harassment of a number of women that he supervised at KPFA. Campanella later resigned under fire from allegations of sex discrimination and workplace violence.

After her repeated complaints, Orozco was laid off from KPFA. When she was reinstated, Orozco again raised her complaints of sex assault and violence to the new interim general manager Lemlem Rijio. Thereafter, Orozco, an administrative assistant, allegedly was not provided a computer or a phone in order to do her work and was placed on probation.

Finally, KPFA manager Lemlem Rijio then required Orozco to work in a moldy room, Once Ms.Orozco knew this was a clear violation of her rights and had exhausted all internal “due” process . Orozco was then constructively discharged. Days after the assignment, the “dungeon” was sealed off from all employees for alleged mold and air quality problems. Orozco states: “I believed that KPFA and Pacifica would do the right thing when I complained about being sexually assaulted at work. Instead, they did everything they could to run me out of a job. I am filing this case to make sure KPFA and Pacifica never do this again.”

Attorneys for Ms. Orozco, Wendy Musell of Stewart and Musell states, “Women should be safe at work from sexual assault, especially at places like KPFA and Pacifica Foundation that claim to care about worker rights and discrimination. The response from KPFA and Pacifica is a textbook example of what not to do in response to complaints of harassment and sex assault.”

Violence and Discrimination Allegations Nothing New At “Progressive” Pacifica Foundation. This is not the first time even in the last few weeks that Pacifica Foundation and KPFA has faced allegations of violence and discrimination against women in the workplace. On Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, Nadra Foster, an African American woman and longtime programmer and prior host of the radio talk show “Elemental Roots,” was reportedly beaten to the ground by the Berkeley police, suffering a severe wrist strain, hog-tied and arrested, after the management of KPFA radio and the Pacifica Foundation had called the police on her, accusing her of being “banned” from the station and misusing station funds by printing math homework for her children, although witnesses report that KPFA management let Foster in the building. Four other women in prior legal actions against radio stations in the progressive Pacifica Radio Network have reported encountered stunningly “un-progressive” workplace practices. Among the prior cases are:

Los Angeles: Sheri Epstein, the assistant to the General Manager, filed a lawsuit in July 2007 against Pacifica’s Los Angeles station KPFK alleging race and disability discrimination and retaliation by Pacifica, KPFK and the General Manager. Epstein contends she was refused reasonable accommodations for her disability, subjected to termination and retaliation when she complained of race and disability discrimination and unpaid overtime.

Molly Paige, a reporter, filed her a lawsuit against Pacifica and its KPFK General Manager Eva Georgia alleging sexual and racial harassment and retaliation, among other things. (LASC Superior Court Case No. BC 365 777).

New York: Andrea R. Clarke, creator and host of WBAI’s “Sister From Another Planet,” filed a lawsuit against the station, its parent company, the Pacifica Foundation, and Robert Scott Adams, WBAI’s interim general manager alleging sexual assault, sexual harassment, discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, retaliation, negligent hiring, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful termination.

Berkeley: On June 26, 2007, Pacifica’s flagship station, KPFA, made a final payment in settlement of the sexual harassment complaint of award-winning investigative reporter Noelle Hanrahan. This brings the total award in that case to $258,000. Hanrahan’s was just the latest in a deluge of complaints of discrimination and harassment made against KPFA in recent years. A labor arbitrator has recently ordered KPFA to reinstate Hanrahan to KPFA, ruling that her termination of employment was unlawful.

State of California and PHFE Charged with Sexual Harassment and Obscene Conduct
Monday May 11th, 2009 11:49 AM
The State of California and Public Health Foundation Enterprises (PHFE) were served today with a lawsuit by former employee alleging sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation. The lawsuit filed by Beth McCarthy in Contra Costa Superior Court, alleges that while she worked for the State of California and PHFE performing audits of health care providers to ensure compliance with State law, she was subjected to ongoing sexual harassment and discrimination, and upon complaining of the unlawful behavior, she was placed on leave without pay and benefits and fired.

The allegations state that Ms. McCarthy was subjected to lewd and lascivious comments throughout her employment by her direct supervisor, Steve Van Tine. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Van Tine would identify female co-workers by the size and shape of their breasts, while cupping his hands under his chest and stating “you know the one with the big ones.” Van Tine also suggested that he and Ms. McCarthy should have a sexual relationship in the office by repeatedly describing sexual acts he had in the workplace at prior positions, including reported be “given” a Vietnamese “house girl” for his sexual pleasure.

Van Tine also expressed his displeasure with a female supervisor by stating that she did not like Van Tine because “she was a lesbian man hater” and “needed to get laid.” The lawsuit describes that she was not the only woman targeted by Mr. Van Tine. The lawsuit states that Van Tine repeatedly made sexual remarks about numerous female co-workers, customers, health care providers and supervisors throughout Ms. McCarthy’s employment.

After repeated warnings to Van Tine, Ms. McCarthy reported Van Tine’s behavior to the management at PHFE and the State of California. After her complaint, the lawsuit alleges that she was placed on involuntary leave of absence with no pay, and no benefits and finally fired from her job. Mr. Van Tine, however, still retains his position without receiving any form of discipline.

Attorneys for Ms. McCarthy, Wendy Musell and Elisa Stewart of Stewart and Musell stated, “The State should be held to a higher standard. The State failed to provide any protection from extreme sexual harassment for Ms. McCarthy and other women tasked with ensuring compliance with California law. No worker should be subjected to the hostile work environment which Defendants created here.”

Park ranger sues over sexual harrassment
Union-Tribune 
December 17, 2008
SAN DIEGO —
A park ranger has sued the California Department of Parks and Recreation, saying she was harassed and discriminated against during the six years she worked at San Onofre and San Clemente state beaches because of her gender and sexual orientation.

Jennifer Donovan, in a lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court, said sexually explicit material was regularly posted in locker rooms and elsewhere in her workplace, including sex toys, obscene drawings, women's underwear and negative comments against homosexuals.

Donovan, who is a lesbian, said she also was forced to work in a sexually charged workplace where supervisors routinely made disparaging and offensive remarks.

In her lawsuit, Donovan said she was “subjected to constant sexually explicit jokes, pictures, gestures and comments and expected to participate or at least not complain, among other things.”

She also said she was passed over for promotion in favor of other rangers with less experience, including one man who was under investigation for posting nude pictures of himself on a state computer.

“This is the kind of behavior that should not go on in any police department. It's really shameful,” said Donovan's lawyer, Wendy Musell.

Donovan, 43, was transferred to a post in Humboldt County in 2006, her lawyer said. She is seeking an unspecified amount of money in damages.

“We're hoping not only that Ms. Donovan will be made whole but that there will be systemic changes,” Musell said.

A department spokesman, Roy Stearns, declined to comment because he said department lawyers have yet to review the case.

Donovan filed her lawsuit in August, but the case was dormant until last week when she retained Musell's San Francisco firm, Musell said. She said the case was reactivated Monday when the Parks and Recreation Department was served.

Before going to court, Donovan filed harassment and discrimination complaints with the department, but “it was not taken seriously by the department” and Donovan was retaliated against, Musell said.

In her lawsuit, Donovan said that in some instances when she applied for promotions, the positions were eliminated by her bosses so they wouldn't have to give the job to her.

Former KPFA Employee Charges Sex Discrimination
The Berkeley Daily Planet
Friday June 10, 2005
A former KPFA radio employee has filed a sexual discrimination and harassment suit against the station, charging that she was repeatedly harassed by her male supervisor and that station management refused to respond to her complaints and ultimately fired her when she continued to press her concerns.

In a lawsuit filed in March, Noelle Hanrahan, the former producer and co-host of KPFA’s Flashpoints News Magazine, charged that the program’s executive producer and co-host Dennis Bernstein sought to drive her off the show and at one point told her, “I’m going torture you until you quit or I force you to leave.”

The complaint alleges that as the abuse worsened, then-General Manager Jim Bennett refused to investigate Hanrahan’s claims, telling her, “If you file a grievance, it will only get worse.”

He eventually placed her on leave in February 2002 and seven months later terminated her, according to the complaint.

Bernstein and Bennett could not be reached for comment.

Current KPFA General Manager Roy Campanella II said station policy prevented him from discussing the lawsuit.

Bernstein, an investigative reporter, poet, Palestinian activist, and longtime KPFA producer, has been hit by other allegations of sexual discrimination and harassment, according to the complaint. Last week, another female producer at Flashpoints, Solange Echeverria, resigned citing abusive behavior by Bernstein.

“I was forced out ... I reported unfair treatment, favoritism, abuse and hostile working conditions on the Flashpoint program ... and I was met with complete disrespect and disregard,” she wrote in an open letter to the KPFA Local Station Board.

Tanya Brannan, of the women’s rights group Purple Berets, said a number of women have been forced from KPFA over the years.

“It’s very difficult for women in public radio to stand up to that kind of harassment,” said Brannan, who has assisted Hanrahan in filing the lawsuit. “There are so few jobs that if you get blacklisted there aren’t many places you can go.”

The lawsuit lists as defendants Bernstein, Bennett, KPFA, and Pacifica, the station’s parent network. It seeks punitive damages for sexual harassment, retaliation, negligent supervision, wrongful termination, and infliction of emotional distress.

Wendy Musell, Hanrahan’s attorney, said her client decided to file suit after KPFA rejected her attempts to regain her job and win lost pay.

The complaint alleges Hanrahan was subjected to Bernstein’s abuse periodically from 1998 through 2002. After Hanrahan complained of Bernstein’s behavior, Pacifica in November 2001 demoted her to host only 40 percent of Flashpoints, according to the suit. Later that month, the complaint alleges that Bernstein interrupted her on the air, urging listeners to call for her removal and to call KPFA management in a show of support for him.

Bernstein received a 10-day suspension for the outburst, according to the lawsuit.

In February 2002, after Hanrahan had reiterated her complaints, the complaint alleges that KPFA changed the locks on the doors so she could not come to work and placed her on involuntary leave. She was fired that September.

Hanrahan, a winner of three public radio awards, now produces the Prison Radio Project, a vehicle that often airs the writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and journalist convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer.

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online Obama’s Prisoner Dilemma: Reject Torture, Defend Torturers
February 4, 2009 4:28 pm
President Barack Obama finds himself in a quandary of sorts over his public position opposing torture and secret detentions.

The new U.S. president has renounced those Bush administration practices, but government lawyers continue to defend the previous administration’s top officials accused of authorizing and carrying out those policies.

"The Obama administration, from day one, said waterboarding is torture," says Mary Dryovage, a civil rights lawyer who represents federal employees suing the government. "How can one simultaneously state waterboarding is a crime and represent one of the architects of one of the legal arguments in support of waterboarding, which is defined in the Geneva Conventions as a war crime?"

Chief among those enjoying a taxpayer-funded defense is John Yoo, now a Boalt Hall School of Law scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Bush administration lawyer, Yoo wrote the so-called torture memos the previous administration invoked to rationalize torture of enemy combatants.

The Justice Department is supplying Yoo with several government lawyers to defend himself in federal court in San Francisco, in a lawsuit (.pdf) brought by Jose Padilla. The one-time alleged "dirty bomber," Padilla claims Yoo’s internal legal opinions paved the way for his harsh interrogation while he was secretly held without charges at a Navy brig in South Carolina.

Government lawyers are also defending former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials in a second lawsuit by Padilla accusing (.pdf) them of violating his constitutional rights.

The dilemma inherited from the Bush administration comes as Obama’s newly-formed cabinet re-examines the government’s position in these lawsuits, and begins to untangle eight years of Bush policy on national security, domestic spying, the environment and the economy. Still, while the fledgling administration is just beginning to take shape, the new president has made clear that it has renounced torture and secret detentions and has already moved toward closing Guantanamo Bay.

The Bush administration initially supplied lawyers for Yoo, pictured left, and the others under a federal law that requires the government to represent its current and former employees in court, when they are being sued for actions performed in the course of their employment.

That law, though, only applies when the government determines that such representation does not conflict with the interests of the United States. If he chooses to, Obama could reverse Bush’s finding to that effect, and end the Justice Department’s representation of the accused torturers.

Unless or until that happens, the government’s legal representation of Yoo, Rumsfeld and the others suggests that the Obama administration is not about to pursue criminal charges against these officials.

"If the government is looking into possibly prosecuting these people at all, it can’t possibly have one arm looking to prosecute and the other arm defending them," says William Balin, a California attorney and legal ethicist.

The Justice Department declined comment.

Some civil libertarians believe the Justice Department’s ongoing defense of the officials sends a message to the public that perhaps Obama is not serious about reversing course from the Bush administration. Even after Obama’s inauguration, Justice Department attorneys have urged federal judges in South Carolina and California to dismiss the lawsuits.

"What it says to the citizens of the United States and the world when the Justice Department is representing these individuals, like Mr. Yoo, that war crimes and torture are not being taken seriously," said Wendy Musell, a human rights attorney in San Francisco.

But even if the Obama administration concludes that it should not represent Yoo, Rumsfeld and the others, federal employment law requires that taxpayers foot the bill for their private counsel in civil lawsuits –- a bill that likely would run into the millions of dollars.

"In my personal opinion," Musell said, "this is just another example of a bailout."