A LOOK AHEAD * With the company targeted in at least two civil rights suits by ex-employees . . .

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating allegations that minority employees of American Airlines at Los Angeles International Airport are racially harassed, according to interviews and court documents.

Citing agency rules, commission officials have declined to comment on the investigation, which has included numerous interviews of American employees and the subpoenas of records in a former employee’s civil rights lawsuit against American.

The airline has been the target of at least two civil rights suits by ex-employees alleging racial harassment at American’s Los Angeles maintenance facility. One suit was for a hearing in federal court here today.

The airline has faced legal action alleging discrimination at other facilities. Last October, a Miami jury awarded $950,000 in damages to a black former mechanic at the company’s American Eagle subsidiary, saying that he had been subjected to a hostile work environment.

Additionally, three black employees at American’s Dallas-Fort Worth maintenance facility filed charges with the federal commission and a Texas agency in August, alleging that they had been subjected to a racially hostile workplace environment.

In the current Los Angeles case, Harold H. Archuleta charges that he was fired illegally two years ago. American attorneys said in court papers that Archuleta had been fired because he “signed an inspection report falsely stating that he had inspected the passenger life vests on a Boeing 767.” The firing was sustained by a neutral arbitrator, according to American attorneys Gary R. Siniscalco and Oswald B. Cousins.

But Archuleta, who worked for American for nine years, contends that in reality he was fired in retaliation for complaints he made about safety violations at American and because he attempted to assist Charles L. Walker, a former American mechanic, in a racial-discrimination suit against the company.

Walker, a retired black crew chief, had alleged that he faced racial discrimination and harassment that included nooses and graffiti proclaiming, “All Blacks Must Die.”

In July, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge rejected American’s bid to dismiss Walker’s case, saying: “I don’t think there is any question that there were awful racial things going on,” at the maintenance facility. Walker settled his suit out of court in late October for an undisclosed sum, according to court papers filed this week by his attorney, Ronald N. Wilson of Los Angeles, who also represents Archuleta, who sued in January.

Archuleta, who is of mixed Mexican and Native American heritage, alleged in his suit that he was the subject of racial harassment that including being called a “tepee dweller” and a “wetback.”

Earlier this month, Scott A. Gant, a 10-year American mechanic, said in a sworn declaration that he was working with Archuleta on the day of the life vest incident and that Archuleta had, in fact, checked the expiration dates of the life vests. Gant said he had told his superiors that the charges against Archuleta were untrue but that the information was ignored.

Gant also said that Archuleta, who worked at American from 1989 to 1998, was a top-flight mechanic.

A number of American employees in Los Angeles said they had been interviewed by Equal Economic Opportunity Commission officials about the situation at Los Angeles International Airport. One veteran mechanic said an investigator asked him about the racial-harassment charges lodged against the company by Walker and Archuleta. The mechanic said the investigator, Thomas Watkins, asked him in particular about the presence of hangmen’s nooses at American’s maintenance facility in Los Angeles. Another veteran employee said Watkins had also asked her about the nooses.

Watkins declined to comment.

The agency subpoenaed records from Wilson about Walker’s case, including information about racial slurs and hangmen’s nooses, according to a declaration Wilson submitted this week to U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow, who is presiding over Archuleta’s case.

In addition to his other charges, Archuleta alleges in his suit that the supervisor of American’s Los Angeles maintenance facility had been aware of and failed to take steps to prevent or stop racial name-calling and the dissemination of racial graffiti in the workplace--virtually identical to charges Walker made.

In the past, American officials, who did not return calls Friday seeking comment, have said that they do not tolerate racial harassment in the workplace but that they are unable to prevent all such incidents. In legal papers, the company said that some of Archuleta’s charges were without merit and that others had been filed too late under the statute of limitations to even be considered.