I was discharged by the State of California Employment Development Department (EDD)—a federally-funded agency—in 2006 after prevailing in a racial discrimination complaint in front of the California State Personnel Board (SPB) in 2005 (SPB Case No. 03-1420A). My complaint challenged foreign language requirements (Spanish and Tagalog) imposed on a set of position conversions from part-time to full-time. According to both year 2000 census data and Department call center records, the Spanish requirement, for instance, excluded 94 percent of African-Americans and 82 percent of Caucasians between the ages of 18-64 residing in California. The Tagalog requirement excluded 99.9 percent of every race between the ages of 18-64 residing in California. When obliged to produce a stringent business need for these foreign language requirements, the federally funded EDD was unable to do so.

A simple check of the EDD’s hiring practices will reveal that it has been imposing similar foreign language requirements on a vast array of positions over a period of decades. This practice has adversely affected tens of thousands of African American and Caucasian applicants across the entire state and possibly nationwide. In essence, this amounts to racial discrimination on a mass scale. The discriminatory foreign language requirements would even exclude President Obama from hiring consideration. The SPB strongly rebuked the EDD in my case. Despite that, the EDD has literally “thumbed its nose” at the SPB and continues to this day to impose foreign language requirements without a stringent business need. At my hearing in front of the SPB in Los Angeles, one of the Board members expressed great concern about the potential of the unsupported foreign language requirements to bring about a class action lawsuit. Given the scope of the problem, combined with the refusal of the federal administration or State to correct the situation, class action remains a very real possibility even today.

Approximately 19 months after my successful racial discrimination complaint, the federally-funded EDD fired me, citing alleged irregularities on my employment application that I signed under penalty of perjury roughly ten years ago. The case is now being litigated in civil court. I believe the evidence will ultimately demonstrate retaliation by the State in reaction to my exposure of their racial discrimination on a mass scale.

Interestingly, the person who fired me was Unemployment Insurance Deputy Director Deborah Bronow. Considering that my former position, Employment Program Representative, is an entry-level step into the Department, it is highly unusual for an official in the highest echelon of an organization with roughly 10,000 employees to execute such a termination. Yet, this is exactly what she testified to doing. Moreover, she testified that she did not conduct a thorough investigation of my prior employment. In addition, she neither interviewed me about the allegations nor did she check with the parties who vetted me at the point of hire. Considering Ms. Bronow’s prestigious position in the Department, my case has statewide, if not federal, implications.

During this process I contacted the NAACP, both at the national level and in Los Angeles, in order to share with them what I knew about federally funded EDD’s program of racial discrimination. Given the magnitude of the disparate impact against Caucasians and especially against African Americans, I thought the NAACP would enthusiastically welcome the evidence I possess. Both regionally and nationally, this organization refused to contact me to obtain my corroborated and authenticated evidence. I also contacted the offices of Rev. Jessie Jackson and Louis Farrakhan, but to no avail. The racial discrimination against African Americans and Caucasians in California still goes unabated on a mass scale today. The Service Employees International Union, the organization representing State of California government employees, was notified as well, but took no action either.

I was emboldened to write this letter to you in the wake of the controversy that recently arose in reference to USDA employee Shirley Sherrod. My experience supports your position that the NAACP, and other like organizations, condone racist behavior and turn a “blind eye” toward public policies and practices that promote racial discrimination in the workplace. Instead of expressing outrage, the NAACP chose to do nothing when confronted with facts that showed that 94% of African Americans were being excluded from employment consideration due to unsubstantiated foreign language requirements.

I have paid a high price for opposing illegal racial discrimination within a federally-funded state agency and it is my hope that you will find my story compelling.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Gary Whaley

I usually say I have a thumping black gizzard, now its a schadenfreude one

1. The article suggests that the incident with the farmer was recent–it was 24 years ago.

2. The article says that Sherrod is telling a story about how "her federal duties" — nope, she was working at the time with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a coalition of black-owned farming co-ops, and that was a large part of why, at the time, a request for assistance from a white farmer felt like it was outside her job description.

3. The tape cuts off before, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. The whole point of the story, Sherrod explained in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was to illustrate an attitude that she grew out of–she went on to work closely with the farmer, helped save his farm, and remained friends with the farmer and his wife, who has also gone on record saying that Sherrod worked tirelessly to help them save their land.

Yep, context certainly matters.