Union Cites Pattern of Discrimination in UCI Pay, Promotion

Union officials charged Monday that minorities and women have been unfairly denied promotions and salary increases in the UC Irvine Library and other campus departments in a widespread pattern of discrimination.

Leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents about 300 librarians and lecturers at UCI, presented the cases of an Asian librarian who said he was reprimanded and denied merit raises for distributing newspaper clippings about a staff discrimination case at UC Santa Cruz, and a black music lecturer who said he was dismissed because he objected to what he viewed as racist remarks by other faculty members.

Sylvester Klinicke, interim president of the AFT chapter at UCI, said there is a perceived “glass ceiling” that prevents minorities and women from advancing, and prompts them to seek jobs elsewhere. In the campus library in particular, the treatment of women and minorities has reached “a crisis,” he said.

“I do think there is a pattern of discrimination,” said Klinicke, an associate librarian at UCI. “I’ve been here 19 years and I’ve seen it take place.”

The AFT charges, made during a news conference at UCI Monday, follow a series of allegations about discriminatory library pay and promotion practices at the university library. Two black librarians and an Asian librarian recently have left UCI, leaving only one Latino, a woman hired this month, and one black among the university’s 50 librarians.

Union officials said they chose to present their hiring and promotion complaints during a news conference because requests to open a Monday afternoon grievance hearing to the public were denied by university officials.

The UCI Academic Senate’s affirmative action committee launched an investigation of library hiring and retention practices at the request of Executive Vice Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien in March. Also, acting Vice Chancellor William Parker said Monday that he and University Librarian Calvin Boyer have recommended a “routine academic review” of library operations.

Parker, whose responsibilities include overseeing the university library, declined to comment on the charges by the AFT. Boyer, who could not be reached for comment Monday, previously has denied discrimination charges and stated that the library is aggressively seeking women and minorities to fill several vacant positions.

In addition to the cases of Daniel Tsang, an associate librarian who said he has not received a merit increase since his hiring in 1986, and Eric Wright, a music lecturer who was dismissed last year, the AFT is representing two other UCI employees in alleged discrimination grievances, and is in the settlement stage of another case, said Gary Adest, executive director of the University of California AFT. No further information was available on those cases.

Tsang, who is a librarian and bibliographer in social sciences, said he was reprimanded for circulating among fellow employees newspaper clippings about Asians, UCI’s cooperative relationships with universities worldwide and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Tsang appealed the denial of merit pay to a three-member faculty panel on Monday. The panel is required to make a recommendation on the grievance to UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason within 15 days.

“For minorities, it’s much harder,” Tsang said at Monday’s news conference. “You have to constantly prove yourself. I was accused of not being a team player. To be a team player you have to feel welcome on the team.”

Tsang said he is quiet, a trait he said is common among Asians, but which was misinterpreted as not participating by library supervisors.

Wright, who is now teaching percussion at the Irvine Conservatory of Music, a private academy, was a part-time music department lecturer from 1981 to 1988, when he was informed his contract would not be renewed. Wright said he was evaluated unfairly on criteria that were not part of his teaching contract, and he added that he believes that the real reason he was not retained is because he is black.

Wright said he objected on several occasions when music department faculty members who served with him on a scholarship committee commented that black students who auditioned for scholarships should not receive department aid because they could easily obtain assistance through affirmative action programs.

“There was a conscious effort to deny blacks entrance to music programs,” he said. “After black students would appear before the scholarship committee, white males on the committee would say, ‘We don’t want his kind around,’ or ‘There are plenty of scholarships through affirmative action.’ ”

Wright said he brought his objections to music department chairman Jerry Huszti. Huszti could not be reached for comment Monday.

Wright said that despite favorable performance reviews, he was held up to standards usually reserved for faculty members on a tenure track, which he was not. He said he was told that his contract would not be renewed because his musical performances off-campus were not in sufficiently large arenas and that he did not recruit or retain enough students for his classes. Wright has appealed his dismissal to the federal Equal Employment and Education Commission.

“My contract only required me to teach,” said Wright, who said he nevertheless organized a percussion ensemble and met with 10 to 14 student members on his own time. “I know the reason for my termination is racially motivated.”

UCI ombudsman Ronald Wilson, who said he is familiar with Tsang’s case but not Wright’s, said the university and the library “appear to be aggressively addressing past problems in retention and recruitment of minorities.”