Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, August 1, 2011
Justice Department Settles Employment Discrimination Lawsuit Against the Tucson Unified School District in Arizona
WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced today that it has entered into a consent decree with the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) that, if approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, will resolve the department’s complaint alleging sex and/or national origin discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. The complaint alleges that the TUSD discriminated against Donna Guzman, Marcia Vela, Veronica Leon, Jimmy Miranda and Eddie Montano, female and/or Hispanic custodial employees of its Rincon/University High School (RHS), by subjecting them to harassment and a hostile work environment based on sex and/or national origin.
The complaint, which was filed along with the proposed consent decree in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, alleges that the TUSD violated Title VII by failing to take effective action that would stop one of its employees – a white, male custodian – from subjecting his co-workers to a series of harassing and abusive comments based on their sex and/or national origin, and subjecting Guzman and Vela to physical intimidation based on their sex and/or national origin, after the female and/or Hispanic co-workers had complained about his behavior to RHS and TUSD supervisory personnel numerous times.
Under the terms of the consent decree, TUSD must pay a total of $45,000 to Guzman, Vela, Leon, Miranda and Montano in compensatory damages. The consent decree also provides for injunctive relief requiring the TUSD to enforce its policies and procedures that prohibit sex and national origin discrimination and to train its officers and other employees on the prevention of sex and national origin discrimination.
“The Justice Department is committed to the vigorous enforcement of all federal civil rights laws under its jurisdiction, including Title VII’s prohibition against harassment in the workplace,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit should send a clear message that the Department will take necessary action to eliminate and remedy the effects of unlawful harassment in our public sector workplaces.”
The lawsuit is based on two charges of discrimination filed by Guzman and Vela with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After investigating the charges, finding reasonable cause to believe that the TUSD had discriminated against the charging parties and their similarly-situated co-employees and unsuccessfully attempting to conciliate the matter, the EEOC referred the charges to the department. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.
The enforcement of Title VII and other federal employment discrimination laws is a top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Additional information about the Civil Rights Division and its work is available on its website at www.justice.gov/crt .
11-992
Attorney General
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Violence Isn't Limited to Arizona, and Mental Health Laws Must Change, Says Civil Rights Author
Susan Klopfer
Author, Who Killed Emmett Till?
sklopfer@gmail.com
As a researcher and author of several civil rights books, I would like to comment on the violent Tucson killing of a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge, the wounding of a congresswoman and killing of others.
I fear that our lack of available mental health services for many people who need help, along with the increasingly violent political rhetoric, will lead to more of these incidences. Violent acts committed by people like this young man who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, are clearly on the rise -- at a time when some politicians are calling for the repeal of public health care and mental health care services, and at a time when they and their supporters believe it is okay to encourage violence ("second amendment remedies") on websites and in public.
Prisons are expensive solutions and are not the best answer for an educated society. We need to consider several changes, including more mental health training for everyone. Too many people seem to be very unsure as to what to do when they run into mental health issues or even how to recognize the signs of mental illness. There is too much ignorance about mental health even among journalists, teachers, politicians, ministers and others who should know better. I did notice the community college handled this young man appropriately and so did the military. The school recommended mental health assessment because that's all they could do, and the military took note of his drug use and didn’t allow him to join.
Current mental health laws often make it hard to involuntarily commit a seriously mentally ill person, even if their behavior is quite dangerous. Typically, if such people are committed, treatment in most states only lasts about five days and then the patient is released and given some medicine that he or she would probably not take. Such a person often ends up being very angry upon release, ending up in jail. There needs to be required follow-through counseling, covered by insurance or public assistance. It is going to take better understanding of mental illness, changes in laws and a lot more money for our safety.
I certainly hope that mental health issues will become part of the national discussion that must take place following this horrific shooting. Surely those who continue to oppose health coverage for all need to step back and realize that part of health care services are mental health services. Can we really afford to cut out health and mental care? Can we continue to allow people to verbally target our leaders, and suggest "second amendment remedies" when they disagree? Can we really afford to use expensive prisons in place of mental health care? I don't think so. And neither should you.
Author, Who Killed Emmett Till?
sklopfer@gmail.com
As a researcher and author of several civil rights books, I would like to comment on the violent Tucson killing of a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge, the wounding of a congresswoman and killing of others.
I fear that our lack of available mental health services for many people who need help, along with the increasingly violent political rhetoric, will lead to more of these incidences. Violent acts committed by people like this young man who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, are clearly on the rise -- at a time when some politicians are calling for the repeal of public health care and mental health care services, and at a time when they and their supporters believe it is okay to encourage violence ("second amendment remedies") on websites and in public.
Prisons are expensive solutions and are not the best answer for an educated society. We need to consider several changes, including more mental health training for everyone. Too many people seem to be very unsure as to what to do when they run into mental health issues or even how to recognize the signs of mental illness. There is too much ignorance about mental health even among journalists, teachers, politicians, ministers and others who should know better. I did notice the community college handled this young man appropriately and so did the military. The school recommended mental health assessment because that's all they could do, and the military took note of his drug use and didn’t allow him to join.
Current mental health laws often make it hard to involuntarily commit a seriously mentally ill person, even if their behavior is quite dangerous. Typically, if such people are committed, treatment in most states only lasts about five days and then the patient is released and given some medicine that he or she would probably not take. Such a person often ends up being very angry upon release, ending up in jail. There needs to be required follow-through counseling, covered by insurance or public assistance. It is going to take better understanding of mental illness, changes in laws and a lot more money for our safety.
I certainly hope that mental health issues will become part of the national discussion that must take place following this horrific shooting. Surely those who continue to oppose health coverage for all need to step back and realize that part of health care services are mental health services. Can we really afford to cut out health and mental care? Can we continue to allow people to verbally target our leaders, and suggest "second amendment remedies" when they disagree? Can we really afford to use expensive prisons in place of mental health care? I don't think so. And neither should you.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Feds Go After Arizona For Violating Civil Rights of Non Native English Speakers
By JONATHAN J. COOPER (AP)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5guaW6MceICLQneyjjq3mSr5mmMygD9I5CLN83
Two federal investigations have found that Arizona is violating the civil rights of some students who are not native English speakers by denying them access to special programs for English learners.AP story continued --
In one case, the U.S. Education and Justice departments concluded that Arizona is inappropriately classifying students as fluent in English when tests show they are not.
In the other case, investigators found that the state is not identifying thousands of students who might struggle with English because it replaced a three-question survey with a single vague question.
Arizona could lose millions in federal funding if officials don't fix the system to address investigators' concerns.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5guaW6MceICLQneyjjq3mSr5mmMygD9I5CLN83
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Arizona's 'Tough Sheriff' Must Answer To Justice Department; Discrimination Against Hispanics
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, PAUL DAVENPORT
The Associated Press
From AP, continued
The Associated Press
PHOENIX — The Justice Department sued the nation's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" on Thursday, calling Joe Arpaio's defiance of an investigation into his office's alleged discrimination against Hispanics "unprecedented."
It's the first time in decades a lawman has refused to cooperate in one of the agency's probes, the department said.
The Arizona sheriff had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the federal government first asked for 15 months ago, when it started investigating alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills.
From AP, continued
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Mississippi Looking 'A Whole Lot Better Than Arizona,' Civil Rights Author Says
News Release
Contact: Susan Klopfer
Mt. Pleasant, Iowa
Cell: 505-728-7924
sklopfer@gmail.com
http://susanklopfer.com/
Smart students get angry when they learn they have been deceived in what they have been taught. This includes removal of truth from history lessons, says an Iowa author of three civil rights books.
Susan Klopfer, recent author of “Who Killed Emmett Till,” the story of the1955 Mississippi brutal murder of a young black student visiting relatives in the Delta, asserts this week’s efforts to ban ethnic studies in Arizona is “all about racism” and further, “the state will learn that censorship won’t work.”
With today’s students camping out on the Internet, reading uncensored e-books, news and pouring through editorial content, censorship and lies are harder to accomplish, Klopfer said.
"But just the attempt to blot out history will make people angry and alienated, especially those who are the targets of white political leaders and their weak attempts to control society."
When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, “the underlying racism was clear enough,” Klopfer said.
But Arizona’s new law that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools, in effect censoring history, "makes the attempted racism even more obvious," Klopfer added.
The Mount Pleasant author has written two books on Till and a detailed book on the civil rights movement in the Mississippi Delta, a region where she lived for two years, on the grounds of the state’s main prison, Parchman Penitentiary. Klopfer’s husband was the chief corrections psychologist in Mississippi, bringing the Oregon native and journalist into the South for the first time in her life.
“As soon as I began meeting people, asking questions and listening to their stories, it was so apparent that much of the U.S. history I had been taught in school lacked in truth. This made me so angry, that I spent up to 80 hours per week researching and writing my first civil rights book,” Klopfer said. "I wanted to make sure the history would not be lost."
Previously, Klopfer had worked as a news reporter in Branson, Missouri where as the city reporter she won state awards for investigative and community news reporting.
Following activities in Arizona for the past two week, Klopfer asserts that “Mississippi is actually looking a lot better than Arizona. Educators and citizens in Mississippi have finally decided their history must be told correctly, and the state legislature even passed a law to make this start happening in the fall.”
Mississippi has become the first state in the nation to mandate that civil rights history be taught throughout the public school system, Klopfer said.
“Sure, not everyone is happy about this and it will be a tough change, but state and academic historians have been putting their heads together to develop new materials that show what really happened in early times, from the days of enslavement through the modern civil rights movement and into the present, as more and more African Americans are taking political office and demanding change.”
Arizona, Klopfer adds, was the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and “suffers from a poor track record on tolerance, to start with."
--30--
Klopfer answers questions about her books and racism:
Q. Why did you become so motivated in Mississippi to write your first book?
A. “What motivated me more than ever was the anger I felt after moving to the Mississippi Delta and learning the history I’d never been taught -- the story of Emmett Till, for instance, or the history of Medgar Evers who was assassinates; Fannie Lou Hamer -- how she was beaten and raped for using a white restroom -- and shunned by the Democratic Party when she tried to tell her story at the 1964 convention; or stories about Aaron Henry and Amzie Moore who, in fact, were founding fathers of the modern civil rights movement, and yet rarely recognized in today’s history books.”
Q. What is happening in the world of text books today?
A. “Bad stuff. This spring, the Texas Board of Education approved a curriculum change that essentially mandates a conservative, white-Christian bias in the teaching of social science. This has resulted in a wholesale removal of brown and black people from the textbooks.
“People such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and civil rights groups like LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund were stricken from the books. The story of Justice Thurgood Marshall was allowed to remain but important details were removed. The same goes for Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott.
“Conservatives defeated attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures in the curriculum, in that heavily Latino state. Hence, the people who determine how history is taught in many of our schools throughout the country (because they select the official textbooks) are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
Q. When did ethnic studies begin? Why are they important?
“This movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, some faculty predicted the end of civilization! Students on campuses around the country began challenging the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. The feeling was that when marginalized students -- African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and others -- learned how their people were a part of American history, they would excel in their studies. Further, we all benefit as a society when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world.
“As this country moves more into globalization, this is a time when we should be increasing our multicultural efforts and teaching our children to live together and understand one another. As Mississippi has come to recognize, the people of Arizona must understand they are sending the wrong message by banning ethnic studies and truth in history. It won’t work to lie and it will make many people even angrier as they learn the truth. Instead of working together, Arizona is telling people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.”
Contact: Susan Klopfer
Mt. Pleasant, Iowa
Cell: 505-728-7924
sklopfer@gmail.com
http://susanklopfer.com/
Smart students get angry when they learn they have been deceived in what they have been taught. This includes removal of truth from history lessons, says an Iowa author of three civil rights books.
Susan Klopfer, recent author of “Who Killed Emmett Till,” the story of the1955 Mississippi brutal murder of a young black student visiting relatives in the Delta, asserts this week’s efforts to ban ethnic studies in Arizona is “all about racism” and further, “the state will learn that censorship won’t work.”
With today’s students camping out on the Internet, reading uncensored e-books, news and pouring through editorial content, censorship and lies are harder to accomplish, Klopfer said.
"But just the attempt to blot out history will make people angry and alienated, especially those who are the targets of white political leaders and their weak attempts to control society."
When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, “the underlying racism was clear enough,” Klopfer said.
But Arizona’s new law that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools, in effect censoring history, "makes the attempted racism even more obvious," Klopfer added.
The Mount Pleasant author has written two books on Till and a detailed book on the civil rights movement in the Mississippi Delta, a region where she lived for two years, on the grounds of the state’s main prison, Parchman Penitentiary. Klopfer’s husband was the chief corrections psychologist in Mississippi, bringing the Oregon native and journalist into the South for the first time in her life.
“As soon as I began meeting people, asking questions and listening to their stories, it was so apparent that much of the U.S. history I had been taught in school lacked in truth. This made me so angry, that I spent up to 80 hours per week researching and writing my first civil rights book,” Klopfer said. "I wanted to make sure the history would not be lost."
Previously, Klopfer had worked as a news reporter in Branson, Missouri where as the city reporter she won state awards for investigative and community news reporting.
Following activities in Arizona for the past two week, Klopfer asserts that “Mississippi is actually looking a lot better than Arizona. Educators and citizens in Mississippi have finally decided their history must be told correctly, and the state legislature even passed a law to make this start happening in the fall.”
Mississippi has become the first state in the nation to mandate that civil rights history be taught throughout the public school system, Klopfer said.
“Sure, not everyone is happy about this and it will be a tough change, but state and academic historians have been putting their heads together to develop new materials that show what really happened in early times, from the days of enslavement through the modern civil rights movement and into the present, as more and more African Americans are taking political office and demanding change.”
Arizona, Klopfer adds, was the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and “suffers from a poor track record on tolerance, to start with."
--30--
Klopfer answers questions about her books and racism:
Q. Why did you become so motivated in Mississippi to write your first book?
A. “What motivated me more than ever was the anger I felt after moving to the Mississippi Delta and learning the history I’d never been taught -- the story of Emmett Till, for instance, or the history of Medgar Evers who was assassinates; Fannie Lou Hamer -- how she was beaten and raped for using a white restroom -- and shunned by the Democratic Party when she tried to tell her story at the 1964 convention; or stories about Aaron Henry and Amzie Moore who, in fact, were founding fathers of the modern civil rights movement, and yet rarely recognized in today’s history books.”
Q. What is happening in the world of text books today?
A. “Bad stuff. This spring, the Texas Board of Education approved a curriculum change that essentially mandates a conservative, white-Christian bias in the teaching of social science. This has resulted in a wholesale removal of brown and black people from the textbooks.
“People such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and civil rights groups like LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund were stricken from the books. The story of Justice Thurgood Marshall was allowed to remain but important details were removed. The same goes for Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott.
“Conservatives defeated attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures in the curriculum, in that heavily Latino state. Hence, the people who determine how history is taught in many of our schools throughout the country (because they select the official textbooks) are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
Q. When did ethnic studies begin? Why are they important?
“This movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, some faculty predicted the end of civilization! Students on campuses around the country began challenging the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. The feeling was that when marginalized students -- African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and others -- learned how their people were a part of American history, they would excel in their studies. Further, we all benefit as a society when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world.
“As this country moves more into globalization, this is a time when we should be increasing our multicultural efforts and teaching our children to live together and understand one another. As Mississippi has come to recognize, the people of Arizona must understand they are sending the wrong message by banning ethnic studies and truth in history. It won’t work to lie and it will make many people even angrier as they learn the truth. Instead of working together, Arizona is telling people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.”
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Civil Rights Advocates Uses Text Message to Alert of Racist Sheriff
PHOENIX (psburton) — a civil rights advocate is using text messages to alert residents when the local Sheriff conducts one of his infamous immigration sweeps. Lydia Guzman, the director of a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, is the trunk of a grass roots texting tree designed to alert thousands of people within minutes of sheriff Joe Arpaio deploying his private army of sworn officers and volunteer special deputies called posse members.
MORE --
MORE --
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)