Suit says Oakland Co. didn't stop harassment
By: Steve Eder, special writer, The Detroit Free Press
December 20, 2003
A laborer with the Road Commission of Oakland County says his employers didn't address his complaints about coworkers he alleges wore clothing with offensive racial messages.
Those coworkers, he charges in a federal lawsuit, harassed him after he complained to the county.
Kevin Collins, 46, of Washington Township in northern Macomb County told his supervisor that he was offended by black coworkers wearing hats and shirts with slogans such as "Don't fear me because I'm black" and "The only true God is a black man," according to the complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. Collins is white.
After Collins made the complaint, his superiors told coworkers about his claims, prompting a rash of threats and harassment, he said in the suit. He took a leave of absence from the job he has held since 1999 because of stress he says he suffered from the alleged harassment.
Road Commission officials declined to comment because of the suit. They said all allegations of discrimination, including this one, are investigated. Collins also wouldn't comment.
"Allegations can be very hard to verify," commission spokesman Craig Bryson said. "You sometimes have a case of one person's word against another. When there isn't hard evidence, this can be very difficult."
Collins' attorney, James Fett of Pinckney, said superiors "exacerbated the problem" by allegedly telling coworkers about the complaint, allowing them to "make his life miserable."
The day after he complained to the commission, Collins alleges, he found crackers in his boots at work and white bread in his work pants. A coworker allegedly took a picture from Collins' locker showing him in a Santa suit with his two children. Along with a bag of crackers, it reappeared in his home mailbox with a bulls-eye drawn on it, the suit said.
Collins, a former deputy in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, did not request a formal personal protection order after the alleged incident at his home, Fett said.
The suit said the commission instructed employees not to wear offensive clothing after similar concerns were raised before Collins' complaint.
The commission does not have a dress code, but does have policies that ensure equal rights for employees and a work environment free of discrimination, Bryson said.
Collins' suit said that superiors told a white male employee not to wear a Hooters T-shirt after a female employee complained. In another case, the commission allegedly said a white man could not wear a small Confederate flag on his clothing because it was offensive to black employees.
"When a female or an African American would make a complaint about being uncomfortable, the Road Commission would hop to it," said Fett.
"When a white male makes that claim . . . it is hear no evil, see no evil."
Copyright (c) 2003 Detroit Free Press
Record Number: 0312200021
