Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 13, 1991 TAG: 9104130382
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That could result in the loss of small research grants that total $236,000 this year.
Clarke Dunlap of Baton Rouge applied for an assistant professorship in Radford's geography department in January 1990. In July, he received a rejection letter.
Dunlap, a 62-year-old Korean War veteran, filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor. The job had been given to a younger, less qualified applicant, he contended.
Dunlap filed a suit against the university in U.S. District Court in Roanoke last month, claiming the university had acted unfairly in refusing to consider him for the postion.
"I filed it for additional legal leverage," Dunlap said Thursday in a phone interview.
He complained to the EEOC that Radford had discriminated against him because of his age and because he is a veteran. With the labor department, he complained of discrimination because of his handicap - partial paralysis resulting from a flu-shot reaction in 1979.
The EEOC found that Dunlap was not a victim of discrimination. But the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance in Richmond, a division of Employment Standards Administration of the Department of Labor, investigated Dunlap's complaint and ruled he had been discriminated against.
Radford officials were notified of the department's findings and told how they were to remedy Dunlap's complaint.
"I don't think we're at any risk of losing federal contracts," said Charles Wood, executive assistant to the president of Radford University. "I haven't seen the letter so I can't comment on it."
Radford officials have asked the Labor department to reconsider its position and have provided information to support their disagreement with the findings, said Rick Kast, an assistant state attorney general.
But the department maintained its position.
Wednesday, it offered Radford an ultimatum - pay Dunlap $31,000 in back salary and employ him as an assistant professor for one year, or action would be taken to bar the university from federal contracts.
Radford has five days from receipt of the department's letter to respond and would have an opportunity to appeal.
A business or an institution that has federal contracts "has an obligation under the Rehabilitation Act and Veterans Readjustment Act to take affirmative action to hire and treat equally, minorities, handicapped persons or veterans," said Barbara Reynolds, a compliance officer with the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs.
Reynolds declined to discuss the specifics of Dunlap's case, calling it a "very tenuous situation."
Dunlap alleged that a 31-year-old applicant was invited for an interview, offered the permanent tenure track position as assistant professor but turned it down to take another job.
A second-ranking candidate was invited to the campus for an interview but was turned down for the position, Dunlap alleged.
Finally, a third candidate was interviewed and hired last September, but only for one year.
Dunlap was never invited for an interview.
The suit quotes directly from the Department of Labor's investigation as having found that Dunlap "should have been invited for an interview for the tenure track position, as his qualification equaled the top-ranked candidate and equaled or surpassed candidates for the temporary position."
Dunlap also alleged that Radford decided to fill the position for one year, deferring selection of a permanent employee until this spring. The permanent position was re-advertised last November, to be filled in August, he alleged.
Dunlap asked for punitive damages and injunctive relief, which would force the university to hire him.
Dunlap, who lives on $800 a month in Social Security disability and a veterans non-service disability pension, said he couldn't afford a lawyer and is acting as his own attorney. He attended two years of law school at the University of Texas.
Dunlap received his doctorate from Louisiana State University in physical geography with an emphasis on coastal geomorphology.
"They deprived me of a job illegally," Dunlap said. "But they don't scare me one bit. Institutional authority doesn't intimidate me at all."
by CNB