State Pays Millions For Claims of Reverse Work Discrimination
By: Gary Heinlein, The Detroit News
Monday, February 28, 2000
LANSING - White men are successfully suing the state and collecting millions of dollars over complaints that once came only from women and minorities - job discrimination claims.
They say the State Police, Department of Corrections and other agencies have been stacking the deck against them in a misguided effort to help females and blacks get ahead.
Settlements and jury awards totaling nearly $2.8 million have gone to a dozen men in the last five years. At least six pending cases could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands more. Reverse discrimination lawsuits also crop up increasingly in private business and local government.
"Reverse discrimination is a growing phenomenon," said attorney Curt Levey of the Center for Individual Rights in Washington, D.C. "If nothing else, white males are aware of their rights - or at lease what is feasible."
West Bloomfield resident Greg Thrasher has mixed feelings about the trend. Thrasher, 45, is black and the director of a public policy think tank.
"I don't think we should deny a white male the right to file a discrimination complaint," he said. "Some are edged out of jobs as a result of the effort to get some diversity in a workplace."
"At the end of the day, though, I think affirmative action is a generally good proposition," Thrasher added. "I don't believe in the myth of a conspiracy to take away white males' privileges."
Earlier this month, the state paid $275,000 to settle with State Police Trooper Michael Herendeen. Herendeen, also promoted to sergeant in the deal, is president of the state troopers union in Lansing.
He claimed he consistently was passed over for sergeant, despite 20 years of exemplary service, a Wayne State University law degree and high scores on the sergeant's exam.
