North Dakota Human Rights Coalition
Working to effect change so that all people in North Dakota enjoy full human rights
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North Dakota Human Rights Coalition Working to effect change so that all people in North Dakota enjoy full human rights |
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T. B.-A. – Interviewed 6/17/04
A former senior manager for one of the world’s largest architectural and engineering firms, I moved to North Dakota and began working for an energy and environmental research center on the campus of a major university in the spring of 2000. My husband had taken a position with the university, so I moved with him. Given my prior employment and education, I considered myself to be overqualified for the position at the university. Regardless, I worked faithfully as the “right-hand person” of my supervisor, an associate director of the center. I performed many administrative and management tasks during my time in the position.
In October of 2002, my supervisor announced that he would be resigning his position and leaving the area. Many of the center staff assumed I would take his position. The university advertised internally for the replacement, and I was the only internal applicant. After reviewing my application, the center director concluded that I was not qualified for the position. Although I had been conducting the duties associated with the position for quite some time, I was not upset, initially, that I had been denied the job. I looked forward to the mentorship of a more senior person that I assumed would be hired in the position.
A young man – who had worked at the center previously and had also worked in the private sector – returned to the center shortly before the associate director resigned. This man was approximately ten years younger than me and was much less credentialed. He had only a bachelor’s degree, whereas I had earned a PhD in the field of engineering. I also had more years of experience, am a registered professional engineer, and had been published more than this former employee. I had even initially recommended against his re-hire because I didn’t feel he had much to offer the center. Nonetheless, once the position was opened to external applicants, this man applied and was hired. Due to the short time of his rehire, he did not qualify as an internal applicant, and could only apply to the external search.
I expressed my concerns regarding this hire to the center director, who gave me subjective justification, claiming that the man was more “externally focused” while I was more “internally focused” and that his style fit in with the work environment better than mine did. The most senior technical woman in an organization led by a technical circle of men, I attempted to defend myself and my ability to handle the position, but to no avail.
Next, I visited with the director of the Affirmative Action Office on campus, who offered to help and to work out a severance deal for me. Her offer was to give me a year’s worth of pay so that I could resign and find another job. The Affirmative Action director talked to the center director and reported an open atmosphere regarding the severance pay idea. This occurred shortly before Christmas, 2002. After the holidays, I persisted in calling the Affirmative Action director asking for updates on the settlement agreement, only to eventually find out that there were none. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations deadline for a grievance filed with the university was rapidly approaching. On the day of the deadline, having heard nothing further regarding a severance deal, I filed a formal grievance with the intention of withdrawing it pending finalization of severance arrangements. I then waited a couple of weeks after the holidays and still hadn’t heard anything from the Affirmative Action Office, so I called the Affirmative Action director, who claimed that they assumed that, since I filed a grievance, I wasn’t interested in any kind of settlement and, therefore, withdrew the severance offer. I informed the Affirmative Action Office that withdrawing the settlement offer due to a grievance could be considered retaliation, but the office refused to reconsider. The president of the university also stood behind the office’s decision to withdraw the severance offer.
Shortly after filing my grievance, my role was significantly reduced on several projects I was working on, in yet another retaliatory act. I asked many of my colleagues to attend the grievance hearing to testify on my behalf. Unfortunately, all but one of them declined. Most admitted that they wouldn’t participate for fear of losing their jobs with the university.
Given the withdrawal of the severance offer, I allowed the grievance to continue moving forward. For several weeks, the paperwork traveled back and forth between the university’s investigative offices and me. I was subjected to very tight deadlines for responding to letters/requests from the university. The university, however, missed every deadline they were given, without consequence.
A review committee was created to consider my grievance. The head of the committee was an endowed chair of the law school at the university. Within 12 hours of the first administrative hearing, he sent an e-mail message resigning his position as chair of the committee because of “things that happened at the university that keep [him] from performing in [that] capacity”. This e-mail message was sent out between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. and the hearing was scheduled to start at 8:00 A.M. the following day. The university put another committee together and held multiple hearings regarding the grievance in the spring of 2003.
During the hearings, I was subjected to atrocious name-calling by members of the center, as well as by the center’s director. Witnesses to the hearings described them as “verbal gang-rapes”, referring to the vehement attacks on my character. Nonetheless, I remained stoic throughout the hearings, presented my information, and defended myself to the best of my ability. I was even able to present documentation proving that a university employee tampered with documents; my initial resume review scores had been lowered after the hiring process was completed. In addition, after I had collected copies of information in my personnel file, the center director altered my annual review to make me appear less qualified. When he presented my personnel file as evidence, I presented my copies of the file, showing that information had been altered after I had made my copies. Ignoring the evidence I submitted, the committee decided that they didn’t want to proclaim that discrimination had occurred. They decided, instead, that I was a talented individual and that “[they] should find a place for [me] at the university”. They recommended that I be reassigned in a different capacity and that there be a review of the human resources system in light of the document tampering; however, neither of these actions was taken and there were no consequences to those who tampered with documents.
It is my contention that the process of filing a grievance is flawed at high levels of administration at the university. When a grievance is filed within the university, it goes directly to the supervisor of the respondent. In my case, the supervisor of both the center director and the human resources director was the university president. The president determined that there was no basis for the grievance before it even went to a review committee. The grievance panel is supposed to review the information and propose to the president what he should do about the grievance; however, in this case, the president had already made his decision and wasn’t going to be persuaded by the grievance panel to change that decision. Instead, the president, despite the recommendations of the panel, would not accommodate me, would not consider the recommendations, and concluded that no discrimination had occurred.
Furthermore, my new supervisor warned me that there would be disciplinary action taken if I spent any work time preparing my grievance, which is against federal Affirmative Action Policy. Case law for federal employees states that complainants are supposed to be able to use approximately 15% of work time to prepare grievance actions. I, however, was forced to take vacation time whenever I had to devote time to my grievance, including attending hearings and meeting with the president of the university, the Affirmative Action Office, the human resources director, and the center director. University representatives, in contrast, used work time to prepare for and participate in the grievance process.
Ultimately, overcome with frustration, I resigned my position with the university on July 25th, 2003. I now work as a self-employed consultant. I recently received and accepted a job offer from a national laboratory. In this position, I will be overseeing operations for nearly $70 million worth of research and more than 300 people. This job offer, alone, supports my contention that I was well-qualified for the associate director position at the center, supervising less than 100 people and less than ten million dollars in research projects. My non-hire for this position was discriminatory.
After resigning my position with the university, I investigated all possible options in my situation and decided to do one of two things in order to follow proper procedures: I could either file a lawsuit or file a discrimination complaint with the North Dakota Department of Labor’s Division of Human Rights. I decided to see if the issue could be resolved through the NDDOL before filing a lawsuit against the university. I talked to many people at the NDDOL over the telephone and via e-mail and spent much time speaking with an investigator for the Division of Human Rights preparing my initial complaint.
Once the complaint was filed, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and retaliation, the university was given 20 days to respond. The university asked for an extension of 20 additional days, which was granted. The university, however, missed even the new deadline by 10 days without consequence. I contacted the NDDOL to inquire as to what should be done next. I was told that they were working on assigning an investigator to the case. Following this conversation, I called and left messages every Friday for three weeks, receiving no return calls. Eventually, I was able to make contact with someone who informed me that an investigator had been assigned to the case. I called this investigator more than six times in a six-week period. Every time I called, a secretary/receptionist told me that the investigator was in meetings and would return my call. After six weeks, I was finally able to speak directly with the investigator, who had my complaint sitting on her desk. The investigator told me that she’d gone through all of my evidence and was now reviewing the evidence sent by the university, but that it was incomplete. Therefore, the investigator was putting together a list of all the information she needed the university to provide before the investigation could be completed. I was told that I would be contacted for an interview sometime in July of 2004. The case remains open.
(This concludes the narrative provided by T. B.-A. on Thursday, June 17, 2004) Michael Brown, Jr.
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North Dakota Human Rights Coalition P.O. Box 1961 Fargo, North Dakota 58107-1961 Phone: (701) 239-9323 Fax: (701) 478-4452 Email: humanrights@ndhrc.org
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