THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 20, 1994 TAG: 9408200244
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
In a fight to keep his job, NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Chavis brought forward his wife's former secretary Friday to dispel reports the woman was prepared to file a sexual harassment claim against him.
Chavis said critics within the NAACP had used the woman as part of ``an orchestrated campaign to defame me,'' and he said he would expose them at a board meeting today.
Susan Tisdale, who was fired from her job, said her ``employment concerns'' with Chavis had been resolved without a financial settlement ``or any other promise from the NAACP.''
Standing with her husband, Brent, Tisdale, 32, declined to specify what those concerns were, but said they did not involve sexual harassment or discrimination.
She castigated some NAACP board members, accusing them of trying to use her situation to ``smear Ben Chavis.'' She described Chavis as a ``platonic friend'' of about two years.
``How dare you publicly drag me and my family through the mud?'' she said. ``It is appalling to me that certain members of the board . . . would go to such great lengths to try and publicly defame both myself and Dr. Chavis in order to advance their own political agendas.''
Chavis said, ``When I meet with my board tomorrow, I intend to expose those I know to be involved. . . . I'm going into the board meeting armed with the truth.''
The board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to meet today to discuss Chavis' job performance and his settlement of a sexual harassment claim in which he committed $332,400 of the organization's funds without board approval.
That out-of-court settlement with former employee Mary Stansel was reached last year, and it has prompted several board members to call for Chavis to step down.
``We have got to find everything out now,'' said board member Joseph Madison, one of Chavis' leading critics. ``Every day, it's something different. We have no choice but to get a handle on what's going on.''
According to reports in The (Baltimore) Sun and The New York Times, Susan Tisdale alleged in a memo distributed to NAACP board members that she was ``subjected to advances from Dr. Chavis'' and asked for $100,000 in damages for emotional distress,
Tisdale had told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland earlier that shortly after she started working at the NAACP, Chavis made ``an unwelcomed advance.'' She declined to be more specific about the incident, but told the newspaper she felt his behavior was improper. She said he later apologized.
Chavis denied Friday that he had harassed Tisdale: ``I have been falsely accused.''
Tisdale said she and her husband had become friends with the Chavis family while they all lived in Cleveland and that Benjamin and Martha Chavis had invited her to live temporarily with them when she moved to Baltimore to work. Martha Chavis oversees the Women in the NAACP program.
Later, Tisdale was discharged and wrote Chavis asking him for another job, The Sun reported.
``Given that you cannot provide me with a safe working environment because Mrs. Chavis has unlawfully forced me out of my position as executive secretary for WIN based on non-business-related reasons, I respectfully request to be reassigned to another position in the building,'' the letter said.
Chavis said he planned to give the board a report with documents, names, addresses, telephone and fax numbers that would bolster his claims of a conspiracy against him. ILLUSTRATION: AP photo
NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Chavis, left, answers questions
Friday at NAACP headquarters in Baltimore as Susan Tisdale and her
husband, Brent Tisdale, look on. Susan Tisdale described Chavis as a
``platonic friend'' of about two years and offered her full support
to Chavis.
by CNB