Consultants To Study Complaints At WSU Interviews, Sexual Harassment Workshop Among Pair’s Duties
After getting a public black eye from allegations of worker discrimination and harassment, Washington State University has hired two consultants to improve its handling of such complaints.
“A lot of cases have surfaced and there are some issues to address,” said Ernestine Madison, vice provost for human relations and resources.
“It is obvious that we do have some problems with an institution of this size,” she said.
Consultants Leonard Biermann and Barbara Berish Brown are spending this week meeting with faculty, staff and students. Depending on their findings, they may return for more interviews.
“We are like a sponge at this point, just trying to absorb as much information as we can,” said Biermann, former deputy director of the federal Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.
Biermann and Brown will issue a report on their findings in one year. Their services cost $4,320 per day.
Although hired by the university, the two will give a fair hearing to the views of disgruntled workers and others with grievances, said Brown, an attorney specializing in employment discrimination law.
“If you’re just mimicking back what management tells you - or telling them what you think they want to hear - you’re not going to have a process that works,” she said of the upcoming report.
The two will also prepare a sexual harassment workshop that will be mandatory for all university employees, Madison said.
WSU is now facing at least 19 complaints of harassment and discrimination based on sex, race, age or disability. The complainants, frustrated by a lack of response from WSU, took their cases to the courts and state and federal agencies.
WSU has a host of places to examine such grievances, but staff and faculty say the system favors top administrators, lacks any central tracking system and moves at a glacial pace.
“You spend months - and years - spinning your wheels,” said Leslie Liddle-Stamper, a librarian and head of WSU’s employee union. People who complain often find that they’re shuffled from one office to the next, and from staffer to staffer, she said.
A recent 18-month investigation by federal civil rights officials found that sexual harassment is “severe and pervasive” at WSU. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs also found a pattern of retaliation against women who complain of discrimination. The agency also stated that school officials tend to shrug off such complaints as personality conflicts.
Liddle-Stamper said employee concern about discrimination and harassment provided fuel for a recent two-year WSU organizing drive that drove union membership among so-called classified employees - custodians, truck drivers, clerical staff - from 35 percent to 75 percent.
, DataTimes