Racist Remarks by Official Alleged in Bias Complaint

The former top-ranking woman in the state parks department said Monday she has filed a federal discrimination complaint against Deukmejian Administration officials charging that she was fired because she objected to racist remarks allegedly made by outgoing parks Director William S. Briner.

Barbara Rathbun, a former deputy director of the state Parks and Recreation Department, said she filed the complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because “I want my name cleared.”

“I don’t want people out there to think I was part of this racist situation or to think I did an inferior job,” she said.

Rathbun was fired in January by Briner just before the park director submitted his own resignation to Gov. George Deukmejian. Briner, who had been dogged for months by allegations of racism, will remain on the job until March 31.

Rathbun, a longtime Republican activist who worked for Deukmejian in his 1978 and 1982 political campaigns, discussed the case publicly Monday for the first time and suggested that the governor “had not been apprised of all the facts.”

Rathbun said she personally heard Briner call former U.S. Sen. S.I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.) a “nip.” And she said she heard the director use the term “spear-chuckers” to refer to black members of an advisory commission to the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, a central valley park named after a former slave.

Briner, contacted at his office, denied making either remark and said, “I have never called Sen. Hayakawa a nip. I have never referred to him in any derogatory language. She (Rathbun) is obviously fabricating to make a case for herself.”

Denial of Bias

Briner said he had not yet been served with the complaint, adding “As far as I know there has been no basis for her complaint. . . . She was fired in the best interests of the department.”

Rathbun said she filed her complaint last week against Briner, Resources Secretary Gordon Van Vleck, assistant resources secretary Terrence Eagan and Garth Tanner, former chief deputy director of operations in the park department.

A spokesman for the commission said he is prohibited by law from discussing any case. The commission has 10 days to serve a complaint once it is filed, he noted.

Rathbun is past president and a board member of the conservative California Republican Assembly. In 1982, she said, she led a floor fight that gave Deukmejian the group’s endorsement for the gubernatorial nomination over his rival, Lt. Gov. Mike Curb. Deukmejian appointed her to serve on his statewide campaign steering committee in 1982, she said.

She expressed disappointment that Deukmejian declined a request that he meet with her to discuss her firing. “I had considered him a friend as well as a political ally,” she said. “I had always judged him to be someone who believed in human rights and very sensitive to this kind of issue.”

Allegations that Briner made racist remarks became an issue in Deukmejian’s reelection campaign after Silvester Widemon, the former top-ranking black in the department, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Briner had harassed her into quitting her job. The commission’s investigators found witnesses who said Briner routinely used such terms as “nigger, spear-chucker, nip, broad, wop and spic.”

Deukmejian pledged to carry out his own inquiry into the matter and assigned Eagan to conduct the probe. Eagan, a longtime friend of Briner, had recruited him for the park director post and once had business dealings with him.

Rathbun said that she and three of her subordinates cooperated with Eagan’s investigation after they had been promised it would be confidential. But afterward, Rathbun said, she was directed to take disciplinary action against all three employees who had given statements. She refused to do so, she said.

Rathbun charged that she was fired because of her opposition to Briner’s discriminatory practices and because of her testimony on Widemon’s behalf. She also said she was harassed because of her sex and her Italian ancestry. In several conversations with other people, Rathbun said, Briner referred to her as a “wop.”