A Northwestern University Police Department officer has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that handles charges of employer discrimination, alleging that other NUPD officers directed racially discriminatory remarks at him.
“We do not discuss personnel issues,” says Northwestern spokesman Alan Cubbage. “Whatever allegations may be included in the complaint, they are totally without merit.” (NUPD Deputy Chief Daniel McAleer and NUPD Commander Darren Davis declined to comment.)
Officer Frederick Lee, who is still employed by NUPD, is Chinese-American.
The other officer remarked that the driver was “driving while Asian.” He then turned to Lee and said “you can take that to [Human Resources] if you want.”
Lee has worked at NUPD since September 2005 and says the first alleged incident of discrimination directed against him happened in 2006. Lee’s allegations include:
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In 2006, Lee alleges that at multiple shift-change roll-calls, his supervisor would ask how he got his hair to stand up straight, or tell Lee that he reminded the supervisor of another Asian-American officer. (The other officer, Lee says, is Korean-American, and “looks nothing like me.” The other officer no longer works at NUPD.)
While on duty in a patrol car with another officer, the fellow officer remarked that an Asian-American driver was “driving while Asian.” The fellow officer then turned to Lee and said “you can take that to [Human Resources] if you want.”
Lee said that after he first filed a complaint with Northwestern University’s human resources office in April 2008, the six officers he named in the complaint stopped speaking to him. “I became a target,” he says. “I was basically walking on eggshells. I was trying not to mess up. I would go to work and no one would stop and talk to me. It was very uncomfortable but I got used to it.” After the HR complaint, Lee says, an agreement was reached to hold a sensitivity training day in Norris for NUPD officers.
But Lee alleges the discrimination still didn’t stop. Lee and his lawyer filed the EEOC complaint last month. “These problems have to be brought to the public to be fixed,” Lee says.
The EEOC will notify NU and NUPD that a claim has been filed and they will have 90 days to mediate the dispute, says Justin London, Lee’s lawyer. Mediation would involve meetings between Lee, his lawyer, and representatives of NU and NUPD. An actual investigation typically follows if mediation is unsuccessful, but “if it’s not resolved by mediation, it’ll be resolved in federal court,” London says.
London has drafted a lawsuit that would make claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a federal statute that forbids discrimination in the workplace.
Lee’s allegations are one part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of racial discrimination allegedly committed by members of NUPD, London says.
“We’re investigating claims made by students and officers of racial profiling by NUPD,” London says, which “may or may not lead to a class action lawsuit. It’s a prevalent problem that’s been ongoing.”
breaking news, OH SHIT NEWS IS BROKEN BREAKING NEWS!
lol where the hell was this article claimed to be breaking news?
this is the best thing that has been written for NUintel, the rest is garbage