U.S. Finds Job Bias Against Veterans at Cal State Long Beach

Cal State Long Beach violated federal law by failing to develop affirmative action programs for Vietnam War-era veterans, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation has concluded.

After two investigations since 1995, the department issued a written report over the weekend stating that the university repeatedly violated a 1974 law to prevent discrimination against the veterans, including those who are disabled. The Times obtained a copy of the report Monday.

Federal law requires all U.S. government contractors to develop a system to hire, promote and train Vietnam-era veterans. Cal State Long Beach, one of the state’s largest campuses with 32,000 students, has about $25 million in federal contracts, mostly for research.

Although the campus has developed federal affirmative action programs for women and minorities, the Labor Department report states that Vietnam-era veterans have been excluded from such considerations for years.

“This is a disgrace,” said Raymond L. Renaud, an audiovisual technician at Cal State Long Beach who was a paratrooper in Vietnam with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Renaud was one of 21 vets who filed a complaint against the campus, prompting the probe.

“Veterans deserve the rights they’ve been promised,” he said. “We’ve been neglected for 25 years.”

School administrators, however, say they never excluded military veterans from affirmative action programs. They say all job applicants and campus employees are treated fairly and must meet the same criteria for hiring, training and promotions.

“We have welcomed the Department of Labor’s review and we value our veterans on campus,” said Toni Beron, a spokesperson for Cal State Long Beach. “The university’s goal is to ensure that every worker here is treated well and is able to succeed in his or her career.”

Although state affirmative action programs were nullified by Proposition 209 in 1996, federal laws designed to provide equal opportunity for minorities, women and military veterans still apply because the campus receives federal contracts.

After almost a decade at war, American combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973, ending the longest and one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

The Labor Department estimates that Cal State Long Beach hired 2,669 people between 1995 and 1999. Forty-three, or 1.6% of the total, were Vietnam-era veterans. That compares to about 7% of the population in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

William D. Smitherman, a Labor Department supervisor in charge of the investigation, declined to comment on the report Monday.

The department notified Renaud and other military veterans of its findings over the weekend. Ten of the original 21 employees who filed the complaint still have an active interest in the investigation; some have left the university and others have moved away.

Meeting May Offer Solutions

Labor officials say they plan to meet with the university in the days ahead to discuss possible remedies and restitution for the veterans, such as lost pay, promotions and reinstatement to jobs they held.

“They have never complied with the regulations,” said Walter H. Moore Jr., a professor of speech pathology at Cal State Long Beach who is among the complaining veterans. “I reviewed the requirements in 1997. I advised the administration of the lack of compliance. The university kept denying, denying, denying.”

In their 10-page report, federal investigators concluded that the university committed 18 violations of the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment and Assistance Act. Their findings show that policies were never adequately developed to prevent harassment, retaliation and discrimination against veterans who worked at the university or applied for campus jobs.

School officials, they said, failed to keep records related to Vietnam-era veterans, did not update and review affirmative action programs, and never notified veterans of affirmative action benefits.

Investigators noted that the university even fostered harmful stereotypes about Vietnam and combat veterans by describing them as potentially dangerous employees during 1993 campus seminars relating to workplace violence.

Although university officials have known about the veterans’ concerns for years, the Labor Department said they were “largely unresponsive” to the complaints.

“Over time,” the report stated, those who worked for Cal State Long Beach “felt ignored, passed over or left out of the benefits of affirmative action because of their veteran status.”

The probe began in September 1995 when the veterans filed a complaint with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, part of the Labor Department.

An initial inquiry exonerated the university, and the veterans appealed. Four years later, the Department of Labor renewed the investigation, eventually finding a variety of violations.

“My friends died in that war and my friends were disabled in that war,” said Renaud, 53, of South Gate. “If it wasn’t for them, I probably wouldn’t have kept pushing and pushing all these years.”

The Labor Department found that the university specifically discriminated against Renaud and two other veterans: Steve Hutchinson and John Whittaker.

Renaud, who has worked at Cal State Long Beach for 19 years, contends that his veteran status was never considered during promotions, training and planned layoffs. In at least two cases, he said, promotions he applied for went to women who were less qualified and had less seniority.

“There’s a lot of derogatory information out there about veterans,” Renaud said. “There are media stereotypes about baby killers and druggies, about veterans being unstable and dangerous.”

The Long Beach case is part of a growing list of complaints at the nation’s colleges that involve alleged violations of affirmative action laws for veterans. Discrimination complaints have been lodged against several other California State University campuses.

Research by the Ohio-based Center for the Study of Veterans in Society indicates that an “anti-military culture” within academia has led many institutions of higher learning to terminate veterans or stop hiring them.

Vice Provost R.W. Trewyn, a Kansas State University professor and trustee of the center, said Vietnam-era veterans constitute 6% of the national labor force, while they make up less than 1% of faculty and staff at many schools.

“What term other than ‘discrimination’ can you use to describe this?” Trewyn said. “Most campuses have rigorously implemented affirmative action for women and minorities, but when it comes to veterans and the disabled, they have been very lax.”