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By Mike Cuenca | February 1, 2002
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The Langston Hughes centennial celebrations remind me that during these
past 100 years, we have progressed little in reforming our society to
eliminate prejudices and hatreds. Sure, today fewer people would take
overt action against a person because of their sex or race, but just
how many people do you think it takes to ruin someone's life? In fact,
it takes only one person if all others ignore what that person is
doing. Across the country, in workplaces such as KU, too many people
including many "good" people sit back silently and watch as a few
others subtly but passionately engage in the idealogical crusade
against equal opportunity and enforcement of civil rights laws. Even
though their own employment records reflect significant continuing
discrimination in employment and promotion, employers deny the
discrimination and the retaliation against the victims, arguing that
the victims themselves actually caused it or deserved it, that it's
simply in their imagination, or that there are acceptable "degrees" of
discrimination and retaliation that don't rise to a level of
reprehensible or illegal conduct.In the case of Dr. Ray Pierotti and my
own case, KU has even tried to avoid legal liability by saying we're
not really minority people.
Take, for example, KU's appeal of the jury verdict from Dr. Marie
Aquilino's trial. KU didn't even try to deny that Dr. Aquilino was
retaliated against. Instead, they successfully argued on appeal that
the jury's verdict should be ignored because the retaliation wasn't
actually bad enough to warrant penalties against them or restitution
for her. The people who retaliated remain safely and securely in their
positions. Employers are empowered by such reactionary legal decisions
to continue to attack and persecute the victims while protecting and
defending people who commit blatant acts of discrimination,
retaliation, and fraud.
Why should you care? Because if you're disabled, a veteran, a minority
person, a woman or even a white male past the age of 40 the civil
rights laws protect you. If you allow those laws to be nullified,
you'll be sorry when you find yourself the victim.
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Originally published by the Lawrence Journal-World.
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