Black deputies file discrimination complaint against Denver
DENVER — A group of black Denver sheriff’s deputies allege they are targets of racial taunting and are being unfairly disciplined.
The 13 deputies say in a complaint against the City of Denver and the Denver Sheriff Department that there is a “culture of racism” at work. The complaint was filed March 20 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Manager of Safety Al LaCabe said he and top officials at the sheriff’s department had not seen the complaint, first reported by the Rocky Mountain News.
Derek W. Cole, the attorney representing the deputies, said there is “disparate treatment” at the sheriff’s department.
“What you are doing is you are taking a select group, and you are making them pay more dearly and punishing them more severely than others who have done the same thing,” Cole said.
He said his clients mentioned an instance where two white deputies challenged each other to a fight and received suspensions of no more than 20 days. Meanwhile, he said a black deputy whom he represents was suspended 45 days for allegedly slapping another male deputy on the butt.
Deputy Troy Motley said white deputies have over the past 12 years dubbed January “Hug a Brotha Month” because of Martin Luther King Day.
Motley, a 17-year-veteran of the department, said that in 1993 a couple of deputies wore Ku Klux Klan hoods while others waved Nazi signs and said, “Heil Hitler.”
Fisk to appeal order about Georgia O’Keeffe donation
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Fisk University says it will appeal a judge’s order to display an art collection donated to it by painter Georgia O’Keeffe.
The school said in a news release last Thursday that the order threatens the safekeeping of the collection.
In March, Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle permanently banned any sale of the 101-piece collection and set an October deadline for Fisk to retrieve the artwork from storage and put it on display.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in New Mexico had sued to gain the rights over the collection because of the school’s attempts to sell paintings and because they weren’t currently on display. The Santa Fe museum is the legal representative of the late artist’s estate.
The March ruling said Fisk broke the terms of the donation but shouldn’t lose the art collection to the museum.
In February, the judge rejected a $30 million arrangement to share the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. The museum was founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.
O’Keeffe donated the art to the historically black university in 1949, a time when segregation prevented Southern blacks from visiting many museums.
The collection of art belonged to O’Keeffe’s husband, photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz. It includes pieces by O’Keeffe, Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer and Charles Demuth.
Fisk put the art into storage in 2005 because the gallery where it was exhibited was falling apart, and there were fears the works would be damaged.
That same year Fisk’s trustees voted to sell O’Keeffe’s “Radiator Building-Night New York” and Hartley’s “Painting No. 3” to help keep the school afloat. Those efforts got bogged down in court battles over whether the sale would violate the terms of O’Keeffe’s bequest, and no deal ever went through.
Experts estimate the two paintings could fetch more than $45 million on the open market, and the entire collection could be worth well more than $100 million.
“In short, the court’s order [in March] results in the inevitable deterioration of the collection,” Fisk’s statement said.
Supporters withdraw Okla. anti-affirmative action petition
OKLAHOMA CITY — Supporters of an anti-affirmative action initiative petition have asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to withdraw it.
The Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative filed the court motion last Friday and said the group didn’t think the petition would withstand a challenge to the number of signatures the group obtained.
That challenge had been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of those protesting the petition, including state Reps. Mike Shelton, D-Oklahoma City, and Jabar Shumate, D-Tulsa. A hearing regarding that challenge had been set for Tuesday.
The Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative filed the petition Sept. 10.
Had their efforts succeeded, Oklahoma voters would have considered a measure that would ban government-sponsored race and gender preferences in public education, state hiring and the awarding of public contracts.
Petition supporters had gathered 141,184 signatures. They needed a minimum of 138,970 of those to be the valid signatures of registered voters to withstand a legal challenge. Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage said in February that it appeared a large number of the signatures were duplicates.
According to the motion filed last Friday by the petition’s supporters, “historical validity rates” for petition challenges meant it would be “a statistical impossibility” for the group to meet the minimum threshold for signatures.
The motion indicated the group thought it would waste the Supreme Court’s time as well as taxpayer money to continue pursuing the initiative petition when there was a good chance it would be ruled invalid because of the lack of enough valid signatures.
