ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin referred 31 agents for further inquiry or discipline Tuesday for participating in ``Good Ol' Boy Roundups'' that included racist behavior.
At the same time, the Treasury Department barred its 19,500 law enforcement officers from attending future Roundups and adopted guidelines for officers' off-duty behavior.
Treasury officials, reacting to the fallout from the annual parties, said they are instituting rules to prohibit ``off-duty manifestations of racial and other forms of bias.'' The gatherings for law enforcement officers at a southeastern Tennessee campground, held for the past 16 years, turned in recent years into marathon drinking bouts where women feared for their safety and some participants engaged in racist conduct.
Reviews by inspectors general at the Treasury and Justice departments found that 45 Justice employees and 120 to 200 Treasury workers attended the Roundups over the 16-year period.
The reviews found no evidence that the Treasury or Justice employees engaged in overtly racist acts. But some of the agents witnessed such acts and should have acted to stop them, Treasury officials told reporters.
``We cannot enforce the law, fairly and with repute, unless law enforcement officials demonstrate, in perception and reality, that their behavior is as free from bias as the fair administration of justice requires them to be,'' Rubin said.
In addition, he said, ``All Treasury employees are on notice that they should not attend anything like a `Good Ol' Boy Roundup' in 1996 or at any time in the future.''
The new rules against racist behavior immediately take effect for all Treasury agents except for unionized employees in the U.S. Customs Service, for whom it will be an issue in contract negotiations, the officials said. Other Treasury agencies include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service.
The guidelines, recommended by a Treasury task force, also include a stringent screening process, including psychological testing, to avoid hiring agents who are biased or emotionally unstable.
A law enforcement official said the rules raise questions about how much control a government agency can exercise over its employees' personal time.
``This is a very far-reaching ... policy that's going to have some constitutional issues attached to it,'' said Victor Oboyski, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association president.
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