White Males Allege They're Victims of Reverse Discrimination
By: Liz Cobbs, staff reporter, The Ann Arbor News
Tuesday, June 16, 1998
Two white, male employees at the W.J. Maxey Boys Juvenile Training Facility are suing the Michigan Family Independence Agency for reverse discrimination.
Lee Craft and Mark Dull, both Pinckney residents, claim in their lawsuits, filed in Livingston County Circuit Court, that they have lost promotions to women and minorities with less experience and less education because they are white males.
Craft, an FIA employee since 1975, works at the juvenile facility in Livingston County's Green Oak Township as a special education teacher.
Dull, a youth specialist at Maxey, has been with the FIA since 1984.
Ann Arbor attorney James Fett, who represents both Craft and Dull, says their cases are not about using preferences to remedy past discrimination.
"According to the state's own data, the FIA remedied past discrimination long ago," Fett said. "This is a case of racial balancing and judging a person solely on their race and gender."
"Reverse discrimination is standard operating procedure at the FIA. I cannot believe the Engler administration allows this state of affairs," he said.
FIA spokeswoman Mary Mehren and Chris Dewitt, spokesman for the Michigan Attorney General's Office, which is defending the FIA in the lawsuits, say their offices do not comment on pending litigation.
Craft alleges in his complaint that the FIA and the Michigan Civil Service Agency's policy of "augmentation" requires white males to test higher that women and minorities to be eligible for promotion. Craft contends that after "granting this bonus" to minorities and females, the FIA again considers eligible candidates' race and gender in determining promotions "to the detriment of white males."
Craft, who claims the discrimination toward him has been an ongoing, also alleges his name was "purposefully removed from the promotion eligibility lists to further increase the chance of protected group promotions."
Craft's lawsuit is assigned to Livingston County Circuit Judge Stanley J. Latreille. Dull's lawsuit is assigned to Livingston County Circuit Judge Daniel A. Burress.
Dull contends in his complaint that the FIA has a "double standard of discipline that over-looks wrongdoings by minorities while condemning white males without investigating whether wrongdoings actually occurred."
Dull claims in his lawsuit that although he received documented threats that one of the Maxey residents was "out to get him," the FIA demoted him based on that same youth's later accusations of wrongdoings. Dull also claimed that a minority youth specialist also was accused but not disciplined.
Dull alleges in his complaint that he was demoted to a "youth aide" position without an investigation of the accusation. As a youth specialist, Dull said he worked with rehabilitating youth, and as a youth aide, he "washed dishes and worked in the kitchen."
Dull, who has since been reinstated to his youth specialist position, also claims that another factor in his demotion was his "outspoken...condemnation of the FIA's discrimination."
