CSULB reacts to investigation
By Daniel Oliveira
Daily Forty-Niner
Reacting to a boiling Labor Department
investigation on campus, the Cal State Long Beach administration plans
to send out identification forms allowing veterans to qualify for affirmative-action
benefits, CSULB President Robert Maxson said Thursday.
The announcement comes after Department
of Labor officials visited the campus last week to investigate the university
for discrimination against military veterans.
Some veterans contend they are not receiving
the federally mandated benefits they deserve.
After hearing complaints from some veterans,
Maxson said the university will send out self-identification forms to all
CSULB employees in a few days. In the forms, veterans will be able to identify
themselves as veterans to qualify for benefits.
"The university took that decision after
hearing about the problem," Maxson said.
"Once we learned, we responded to it."
The CSULB Veterans Group has filed two
complaints against the university with the Labor Department.
The group contends the university is not
complying with the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of
1974, which awards affirmative-action benefits in employment for Vietnam-era
and special disabled veterans.
Raymond Renaud, a Vietnam-era veteran and
CSULB equipment technician, said one of the reasons he cannot receive affirmative-action
benefits is because his job application form lacked a check box where he
could identify his veteran status.
And though Renaud wrote his status in another
place on the form and on his payroll, CSULB has not allowed him to qualify
for benefits yet, he said.
"Would you not feel discriminated if an
administrator did not allow you to participate in affirmative-action benefits?"
Renaud asked.
John Whittaker, the Veterans Group spokesman,
said he asked the university for a personal statistics information form,
which also lacked a place for veteran self-identification.
"The university has never notified the
vets of their rights," Whittaker said.
The CSULB administration is now waiting
for the department's reports and recommendations, Maxson said.
"Once we get the report, the university
will do what's right," he said. "We're not in argument with the Department
of Labor."
The department declined to comment on the
investigation.
Maxson said he believes department officials
will finish the investigation in a few weeks.
On Oct. 21, Whittaker, also a CSULB equipment
technician, e-mailed to 16 faculty members a letter saying that he learned
CSULB can lose federal grants if the department rules it is not complying
with the veterans act.
"Can the university afford to lose those
monies?" Whittaker asked.
Maxson said this matter does not scare
him.
"I don't think our grants are in danger
because we're doing the best we can right now," he said. "Anything that
is suggested and recommended to us [by the department], we intend to comply
with."
The conflict between the veterans and the
CSULB administration began in 1995, when Renaud filed with the department
a class-action noncompliance complaint, which later became a discrimination
complaint.
The department ruled against the veterans
and later denied their appeal.
Walter Moore, a Vietnam-era veteran and
professor of communicative disorders, filed in 1998 another noncompliance
complaint.
This time the department accepted the noncompliance
complaint and reopened the discrimination complaint.
Now the department is investigating both
cases together, according to a Sept. 28 letter to Whittaker from Woody
Gilliland, the acting regional director of the Federal Contract Compliance
Programs office. |
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