McLaughlin: OCR 's conflict of interest

Linda Purrington (lpurring@earthlink.net)
Tue, 07 Apr 1998 18:00:09 -0700


Cheryl McLaughlin: Check out Volume 1, issue 12 of Feminista online
magazine, which has an article by Myrna Estep called Canned Hunts,
describing her battle with gender equity law at University of Texas. I
would like to know a lot more about your experience; we've had similar
ones, including one in which the OCR simply declined to interview all
four assaulted girls.
Linda Purrington <lpurring@earthlink.net>
Title IX Advocates
[gender equity in the schools]
Cheryl McLaughlin wrote:
>
> > PEGGY WEEKS wrote:
> > > OCR must investigate all claims under those statutes they enforce. They
> I'm said this before -- OCR"s investigation of a case I filed was a JOKE.
> > > do test for jurisdiction. OCR also does attempt negotiation, but both
> > > parties must agree.
>
> when we filed (3 years ago) it was called mediation. I am a trained
> mediator in a school system, and I am a first hand witness to the fact
> that OCR's version of "mediation" is NOT mediation.
> In our case, it was done only by phone, and the "mediator" who was also
> the "investigator" would phone us, then phone the univ. (the accused --
> athough I"m still not clear on legal terms, so bear with me), then phone
> us back. His investigation felt more like intimidation.
> He was an arguable person, he phoned me very early in the morning, even
> when I'd told him that I was home ill, he phoned me at work (which I'd
> said was ok) for lengthy conversations, then would phone me back 5 min.
> later. HE chipped away at me until there was nothing left.
>
> We "lost" the claim, as the univ. AFTER 9 months and $3000 in legal fees,
> finally removed the person in question from his position (resident advisor
> -- a student employed by the univ) about 3 weeks before the end of hte
> school year -- when it was far too little, far too late.
>
> a terrible, and truamatic situation -- one I would NEVER go through again,
> no matter how awful the circumstances were. His insensitivity felt almost
> as bad as the initial incident.
> Cheryl McLaughlin <mclaughl@cats1.admin.pps.pgh.pa.us>
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