Three custodians, an IT technician and a former dean have received payouts to settle years-long lawsuits in which they alleged they were victims of numerous racial attacks while working at Southwestern College, The Sun has learned.
The allegations were first outlined in a 2015 letter penned by former dean of Arts and Communication Dr. Donna Arnold-Dudley and signed by five employees. Signers of the letter were custodians Roderick Curry, Thaao Streeter, Eric Matos and Mark Gutierrez; and PC Systems Technician Johnny Blankenship.
The allegations included:
• A majority of the signers being called “nigger” by coworkers.
• A custodian’s locker was broken into and feces were placed inside.
• A picture of former President Barack Obama that hung in a custodian’s locker was defaced with the word “nigger.”
• Campus police were called on one employee because he appeared as a “thief or homeless person” to another college employee.
• Monkey noises and various racial slurs were directed to custodians over their work walkie-talkies.
Streeter, Gutierrez and Curry said in 2017 they had tried numerous avenues to voice their complaints prior to signing the letter. An investigation by the college into the allegations was launched after Assemblywoman Shirley Weber and NAACP received the complaint.
Curry said the custodians were unable to comment on the settlement until after they retire on May 31.
The employees filed their lawsuits in 2017 and they played a role in SWC President Kindred Murillo’s decision in 2018 to order a study into race relations among campus employees. The study, led by Dr. Shaun Harper, executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, found SWC suffered from one of the worst anti-black problems that the authors had seen nationwide.
This problem, they said, was largely the fault of white and Latinx employees.
“In addition to being called niggers, unnecessarily confronted by campus police, and associated with animals, African-American classified employees had numerous other examples of being bullied and harassed on campus,” Harper wrote.
Racial tensions have bubbled under the surface for decades at SWC. With a campus that has been predominantly Latinx since its opening years, black faculty and staff have felt the discrimination has long been ignored.
This feeling of neglect has since seeped into the student body.
On May 2, Murillo cancelled the Associated Student Organization’s annual election after learning about a fake Instagram post that made it appear a slate of black candidates was attempting to incite racial violence against their predominantly Latinx opponents.
The black candidate slate, known as Team Elite, denied any knowledge of the post, which called to “chop the heads off of the euro-centrist white supremacist mexicans of the campus,” and accused the predominantly Latinx slate, known as Team Green, of creating the post in attempt sway the election in their favor.
Prior to the Instagram post, Dimitrius Loa, a Team Green member, had been accused of making racist comments made by a Team Green member about directed toward Team Elite. Black students reacted with outrage after the ASO Election Board imposed a punishment on Loa that they felt was too lenient.
Murillo called for investigations into both the Instagram post controversy and issues relating to the Loa situation. In addition, she said a cultural shift needs to happen to address the pain felt throughout the campus.
A decade of unrest.
In 2015, after Arnold-Dudley’s letter was made public, Former SWC President Dr. Melinda Nish wrote that the employees’ complaints were old and had already been investigated.
Former classified school employees union (CSEA) president Andre Harris received a death threat in his office in April 2015 after he wrote a letter that was published in The Sun, saying he had not experienced discrimination at SWC. Arnold-Dudley and Blankenship were put on paid administrative leave after Harris received the letter, and their college computers were removed from their offices. Numerous witnesses said Arnold-Dudley was forcibly removed from campus by college police. Blankenship was reinstated about one month later, but Arnold-Dudley never returned. She retired in June 2015, and was the first to file a lawsuit. Arnold-Dudley and Blankenship allege in their separate lawsuits that the college systematically discriminates against African-American employees and is guilty of “outrageous conduct” and unfair employment practices.
Custodians Streeter, Gutierrez and Curry filed their suit in November 2017 and alleged systemic racial discrimination that began in 2009. The suit said SWC did not adequately train employees to prevent racism and retaliation.
A number of employees were fired or placed on administrative leave as the custodians claims were investigated. Among them was former Director of Facilities Charlotte Zolezzi, who the custodians alleged was harassing and blackmailing them. Zolezzi said the charge was untrue.
CSEA President Silvia Nogales (who was the organization’s vice president at the time of the 2015 scandal) said contradictions of that nature were increasingly common. Nogales and Harris were their union representatives at the time of the investigation, and said in a 2017 interview she and Harris had initially believed their allegations.
“It became clear to the investigators and to us that the custodians were manipulating this investigation and were lying half the time,” she said. “They have alienated themselves by making up some of these things or changing facts to benefit them. It’s disappointing that grown adults have to go to this degree of manipulation and lying to get out of working.”
Harris agreed in a 2017 interview with The Sun.
“Do your jobs, man,” he said. “And I quote, just do your jobs.”
An eight-week investigation conducted by an outside law firm in 2015 concluded that claims made in the employee’s letter “did not rise to the level of violating anti-discrimination laws.” They also said the college was to blame for poor management.and not acting quickly enough to address allegations.
Arnold-Dudley’s lawsuit settlement was announced at a July 2018 Governing Board meeting, where it was said she received $60,000. Little mention was made of Arnold-Dudley or the custodians again until a month later when the racial climate report was released.
The report’s aftermath.
Critics of the report have questioned its validity and said it was not thorough enough. Dates, times and names not being listed was seen as a lack of official evidence. Murillo said it was not a fact-finding mission and was meant to let people’s voices be heard. Murillo said honoring the stories was more important than addressing the validity of the testimony. Incidences reported in the study were from the past, she said in a meeting with The Sun in 2018.
Some non-black faculty largely discredited it because of the widely known custodian testimony and said anti-black discrimination does not exist on campus. Of the 119 people interviewed for the study, only three of them were the custodians in question.
Murillo said while the report focused on staff, faculty and administration, its contents are a reflection of the student body as well. When it was announced Murillo cancelled the election, she sent a reminder via her “Things to Know” email to employees that said to set personal agendas aside for the students.
“As a college community, we are working hard to build a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion,” Murillo said. “I feel we are beginning to truly understand the longstanding hurt and finding ways to nurture each of our innate abilities to compassionately serve our students.”
