Retired Officer Asks Army for $10 Million in Bias Suit

A retired Latino officer in the Army who blamed bad job assignments and denial of promotions on discrimination has filed a $10-million civil rights suit, saying the Army’s promotional system discriminates against minorities.

Latino and black officers have been promoted 10% to 50% less often than whites over the last 12 years, said former Maj. Chris Gonzalez of San Rafael, who said the figures were based on Army statistics.

“Minority officers are disproportionately weeded out of the promotional process and white officers are disproportionately promoted,” said Gonzalez, 44, who left the Army after 20 years in 1985 and now is a high school ROTC instructor in Oakland.

‘In the Slow Lane’

“Before a minority officer even knows it, he is in the slow lane,” Gonzalez told reporters after filing suit Friday in U.S. District Court. “He will be weeded out or quit in frustration.”

However, Maj. Greg Rixon, an Army spokesman, said the promotional system “is designed to ensure that we don’t have discrimination.” He said disparities in the number of low-ranking and high-ranking minority officers are probably due to officers’ leaving the service voluntarily for a variety of reasons, including discrimination in local communities.

Rixon said the Army has 94,769 commissioned officers, including 1,270 Latinos, or 1.34%, and 9,916 blacks, or 10.46%.

Out of about 16,000 with ranks of lieutenant colonel or higher, about 4.7% are black and 0.9% are Latino, Rixon said. He said the 376 generals include 29 blacks--one of them Brig. Gen. Fred Gorden, the newly appointed first black commandant of West Point--and no Latinos.

Menial Jobs

Gonzalez, a native of Puerto Rico who received a Bronze Star for Vietnam duty in 1969-70, said he was frequently given menial job assignments during his career, such as “passing out basketballs” in Korea and running copying machines in the basement of the Presidio in San Francisco.

He said he wound up his career at Ft. Campbell, Ky., where his job had a variety of high-sounding titles, including affirmative action officer and human resources manager, but little substance.

Gonzalez said he had been promoted from captain to major only after filing suit and was seven years behind his peers with no prospects for advancement when he retired. His lawyer, Carlos Duque, said Gonzalez was a man of considerable ability, with an I.Q. of 142.

The suit contends the Army’s officer evaluation report, the basic tool of the promotional system, is “inherently subjective and contaminated by bias against minority officers.”