Word: adebayo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...word of Coleman-Adebayo's case spread, scores of EPA workers came forward with tales of mistreatment at the hands of white supervisors. Among them was Anita Nickens, an EPA environmental specialist who tearfully described how, at a 1993 EPA event at which she was the only black employee present, she was ordered to clean up a toilet in anticipation of Browner's arrival. To make matters worse, Nickens recalled, her white supervisor later bragged about it to others. An association of 150 aggrieved employees is exploring filing a class-action discrimination suit against the EPA similar to those that...
After learning that she had been the only person on the otherwise all-white professional staff of the Office of International Affairs who did not receive an outstanding performance evaluation or annual bonus, Coleman-Adebayo filed a discrimination complaint with the EPA's office of civil rights. "And that," says Coleman-Adebayo, "is when the ceiling fell down on my head...
Then she was appointed executive secretary of a bilateral commission working group on environmental issues co-chaired by Vice President Gore and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, but not given the resources she needed to fulfill her duties. "The harassment really intensified," says Coleman-Adebayo. "We couldn't get any funding for projects. I couldn't get permission to travel to South Africa to meet with my counterparts there. It got so bad that the South African government offered to send me a plane ticket because they needed me to be at some meetings...
...obstacles put in her way, Coleman-Adebayo couldn't believe that a top official of an administration hailed for its sensitivity to blacks would countenance such misconduct. Her lawyer sent Browner a letter in March 1997, declaring that Coleman-Adebayo thought that Browner was being "deliberately kept out of the loop" about the "crude and ham-fisted" treatment she was receiving from a network of "good old boys" who dominated the agency's middle management. She got back a letter from Browner's chief of staff saying that since Coleman-Adebayo's complaint was under investigation, Browner wouldn't discuss...
...considerable victory. But Coleman-Adebayo's real triumph was in casting a spotlight on the bigotry that had festered inside many government departments under both Republicans and Democrats. For all Clinton's public embrace of black concerns, his administration did not work more effectively to clean up the mess than its do-nothing predecessor...