Posted on 05/03/2002 7:39:00 AM PDT by Drango
NPR settles Rattley’s suit alleging racial discrimination
Originally published in Current, April 22, 2002
By Mike Janssen
NPR settled a five-year-old racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit last week in which former Vice President for Cultural Programming Sandra Rattley accused the network of demoting and firing her for her vocal advocacy of diversity in staff and programming.
Neither Rattley nor NPR would discuss terms of the settlement, which came after a week of testimony in Washington, D.C. Superior Court.
Rattley, who is black, claimed her demotion and firing came after NPR management branded her "not a team player" when she protested plans to lay off what she called a disproportionate number of minority staffers and to cut programs that appealed to black audiences.
NPR's attorneys argued that former President Delano Lewis and Chief Operating Officer Peter Jablow disapproved of her performance and leadership abilities. Race, they said, was not a factor.
Rattley and NPR had tried twice to avoid a trial. Mediation failed in January 1999. Last summer, settlement conferences ended with the parties far apart, according to attorneys.
The trial began April 8 and, after three days, presiding Judge Michael Rankin encouraged both sides to try settling once again. Most discrimination suits are settled, he said.
Was the plaintiff using the case to air grievances or, he asked, was there a "bottom line?" There was a bottom line, replied Devki Virk, an attorney for Rattley. Talks resumed, and Rankin announced the settlement April 15.
Rattley, who brought the suit in 1997, told Current she always welcomed settlement. But during earlier talks, "the gap between what NPR was offering and what my attorneys were requesting seemed too large to breach." The company's offer was not "even in the ballpark of reasonable," she said.
Her suit sought $600,000 in compensatory damages with interest, and at least as much in punitive damages. During the trial, a labor economics expert said Rattley would have earned an additional $615,000 if she had kept her job and worked to age 65.
Both sides claimed the other moved to break the logjam. Rattley said that after NPR heard testimony from her and her witnesses, which included former colleagues, it "presumably didn't want a positive judgment relative to racism and racial discrimination. I'm assuming that. I think you'd have to ask NPR."
"We are disappointed that Ms. Rattley would speculate about NPR's motives when her own position [on the settlement] changed dramatically after NPR had the opportunity to cross-examine her and her expert witnesses," said Celeste James, NPR's v.p. of communications.
Two of Rattley's claims were dismissed before her case came to trial. She charged that NPR had a hostile work environment, but a judge sidelined that claim in March 1999. Another claim, that departing Vice President of News Bill Buzenberg received a severance package unfairly larger than Rattley's, was dismissed last year in summary judgment proceedings.
Rattley's suit was one of eight known discrimination claims filed against NPR in the mid-'90s. The network settled a gender discrimination suit filed by former reporter Katie Davis. A racial and religious discrimination suit filed by former correspondent Sunni Khalid is pending.
The aborted trial, settled before NPR called witnesses, focused on competing claims over Rattley's competence as a leader, performance in her job, and role in a tense time when the specter of cuts in federal funding forced the network to set priorities.
Rattley's attorneys called her and her former colleagues to the stand, trying to establish her as a strong leader and talented producer who fell prey to discriminatory practices.
She first joined NPR in 1980 as an editor in the news department, where she said it was a struggle to push for coverage of minorities. NPR balked at covering stories about minorities not already in the mainstream media, she said.
At one point, she argued her point with high drama, showing up at an editorial meeting clad head to toe in camouflage. She told her colleagues she'd be taken seriously only if she showed she "came to wage war." After that, she said, she did get more of an audience.
She left in 1988 and returned four years later as a senior producer of NPR's Hothouse, an incubator for new programming. In 1993, she became acting v.p. for cultural programming, and Lewis made the appointment permanent shortly after he arrived a year later.
Doug Bennet, a former president of NPR who rehired Rattley in 1992, told the court he was "confident" she could serve as acting v.p., and that her permanent appointment to the post was plausible. Peter Pennekamp, v.p. of cultural programming from 1989 to 1993, said he never doubted her administrative abilities. Her later promotion seemed "obvious," he said.
But Rattley later clashed with Bennet's successor, Lewis. NPR created a Federal Funding Task Force in 1995 to plan for possible federal funding cuts, and Rattley was told to cut $3 million from her division's budget of $4.2 million.
In the end, only $770,000 was cut, but the programs cast aside appealed to African-Americans. The network dropped Afropop Worldwide and Rhythm Revue, for example. Adding to Rattley's concern was the fact that of 25 employees laid off as part of the cuts, half were minorities. At the time, she said, minorities formed 20 percent of NPR's workforce.
"Any objective observer could not help but see this as racism," she told the court.
She took her concerns to Lewis and Jablow and was met with indifference, she said. Then, in 1996, Lewis told Rattley he was eliminating her position and made her head of the network's program services board--a demotion and a position with a lower salary, she said. According to Rattley, Lewis said NPR would also eliminate the news veep post and name a v.p. of programming instead.
In August, however, Rattley learned that her old position was not going away after all, and that Murray Horwitz, who is white, would succeed her. "I felt that I had been lied to," she said.
She was fired in 1997 and has worked as a consultant since then.
NPR's attorneys claimed Lewis fired Rattley for reasons besides race. "She had a job and could not get it done," said Joe Caldwell, an attorney representing NPR.
Lewis "lost confidence in your ability to provide leadership," Caldwell told Rattley. "This doesn't have anything to do with racism."
To make the point, Caldwell grilled Rattley about the African-American Audience Research Project, a CPB-funded study she initiated while at NPR. Rattley finished the study a year and a half after its deadline, Caldwell claimed.
But Rattley said she compiled and analyzed all the data closer to the deadline, and she considered the project finished at that time, although a formal report was not written and edited until later.
Caldwell also cited a 1996 performance review in which Lewis gave Rattley low marks in several categories.
"So Delano Lewis had clearly communicated to you he was concerned about your leadership?" Caldwell asked.
"No," Rattley answered, and said that despite repeated inquiries Lewis only described his displeasure in "nebulous" terms.
Rattley's case is out of the way, but NPR is contesting another suit in federal court. It has asked for a summary judgment in Khalid's suit, also filed in 1997. Gary Kohlman, an attorney for Khalid who also represented Rattley, said he is confident the motion will be denied, and the case could go to trial within six months.
It is nice to see the liberals bit by the and that feed them. That's what happens when you hire by skin color rather than talent! Maybe now NPR won't be so quick to point the finger at companies accused of racism by a former employee. I will have to stifle the laughter at the next NPR report endorsing "reparations!!"
I guess this means more fundraising auctions (and more reasons not to listen to NPR!!). Maybe they can get a good price for some of Robert Byrd's used white Klan frocks!!!
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