THE“CAMPUS October 2, 2019 – Volume 113 Issue 6
Interim police chief, CFO accused of discrimination Campus police officer submits claim to HR, employee submits Title IX report Emily Wollenberg
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
A campus police officer and a library employee have filed a discrimination claim and a Title IX report against OCU’s interim police chief and the chief financial officer. The officer filed a formal discrimination complaint with Human Resources last week against Interim Police Chief Mark LaHue, according to Steven Vincent, former campus police officer. The officer and LaHue declined to comment. In a Sept. 26 interview with Student Publications, LaHue and Chief Financial Officer David McConnell said they were unaware of any complaints. They could not be reached for comment after the previous interview. Vincent said he keeps in contact with several officers and was told by the officer who filed the complaint what happened. Vincent said the officer does not want to reveal his identity for fear of losing his job. “He’s a young officer,” Vincent said. “(Interim Chief) LaHue has been in law enforcement for many years.” Vincent said the officer, who identifies as openly gay, told him he was in the campus police department last week when LaHue made an inappropriate sexual comment to him. Vincent said the exchange was heard by two other officers. The officers declined to comment. After the incident, Vincent said the officer who LaHue’s comment was directed at told another officer about the incident. The officer then confronted LaHue. LaHue called the officer involved in the original incident into his office and accused him of spreading lies, Vincent said. “If an allegation is made against a supervisor, they contact human resources,” Vincent said. “LaHue did not contact HR. He called in [the officer], confronted him and tried to intimidate him, tried to make him take it back.” Vincent said the officer told him of three other previous incidents in which LaHue made homophobic comments toward the officer. “Anybody in a leadership position should know that that is in no way, shape or form acceptable,” Vincent said. After the officer told him of the incidents, Vincent said he encouraged him to file a complaint with HR. “This is unacceptable,” Vincent said. “The university has a strict policy on sexual harassment and hostile work environments, and this falls under that, of course.” LaHue’s position makes officers afraid to speak out about the issues, Vincent said. “LaHue drops these little sexual innuendos daily,” Vincent said.
Creating an environment where people feel discriminated against for being who they are, that is not a safe environment. Taylor Downey youth ministry junior
“In that department, they’re scared of chiefs, so they don’t want to come forward.” Campus police must have a chief that respects diversity and is maybe even part of a minority community, Vincent said. “If he harbors these opinions about gay people, he doesn’t need to be in any law enforcement capacity,” Vincent said. “I don’t know how they can keep LaHue as a campus police officer if there’s valid and verifiable information.” Taylor Downey, youth ministry junior and Title IX program coordinator, said once a claim is submitted, officials begin investigating and interview witnesses that have been named or are related to the situation. “If an employee has a situation that makes them feel uncomfortable, Title IX works behind the scenes to make accommodations,” she said. Because of the recent events involving discrimination, Downey said she is disappointed by these latest allegations. “It’s really unfortunate that all these things are happening at once on our campus with so many instances of discrimination that make people feel uncomfortable for who they are,” she said. “It’s especially unfortunate because we have had so much turnover in our police department. It makes me wonder, are we ever going to get to a good enough place where we have some established good people working on campus?” Campus police officers have a duty to make students feel safe on campus, Downey said. “A police officer’s job first and foremost is upholding the law and keeping people safe, and so creating an environment where people feel discriminated against for being who they are, that is not a safe environment,” she said. Anthony Edwards, Dulaney-Browne Library circulation technician, said he submitted a Title IX report on Sept. 26 to Kristie Pendleton, civil rights investigator, after hearing from multiple officers in campus police that Chief Financial Officer David McConnell, who
oversees campus police, made an inappropriate sexual comment about a case he oversaw at a previous police force during a meeting with campus police officers. Edwards wrote that McConnell was telling a story about a female who was experiencing a mental crisis and had disrobed. “He related that his daughter had asked him if she had ‘crazy eyes,’” Edwards wrote in the report. “He responded with, ‘I don’t know what her eyes looked like darlin,’ but I saw her perky little breasts.’” Edwards wrote he has confirmed that all staff at the police department were present for the meeting. “This is not okay from anyone on campus, much less an individual who is currently overseeing the police department,” he wrote in the report. Vincent said he hopes university officials won’t hide from these issues, which will only make them worse. “I love that campus,” Vincent said. “I wish it would do better,” he said. Vincent said he was terminated in June of this year after attending a former dispatcher’s unemployment hearing. He said he had heard nothing but positive feedback before he was terminated and was given no reason for his termination. Vincent said he has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Vincent said he has heard that officials are considering transitioning from a campus police department to campus security. “I worked there in 1991 and 2001 when it was armed security instead of police officers. I believe the campus is ultimately better with a police department,” Vincent said. “They need to rebuild, not demolish and hire people who can’t provide as much security.” Vincent said when he worked under former Police Chief Rusty Pyle, he never experienced any kind of inappropriate behavior. “I think his mistake was that he backed Kavenius even when Kavenius was wrong,” Vincent said. “I personally never witnessed racist, homophobic or inappropriate behavior from him.” See mediaocu.com for more on Kavenius and Pyle. Vincent said it is a common sentiment in many police departments to back other police officers, no matter what. “I don’t care about the ‘thin blue line’, I care about doing what’s right,” he said. “For the student population, for the staff, keeping them safe. They should feel secure, protected and respected by the police department.”
SGA president signs resolution to suspend Kappa Sigma, Alpha Phi Organizations agree to suspend all non-philanthropic campus events rest of academic year Paul Dower
COPY EDITOR
Content Warning: This story contains an uncensored racial slur. Student Government Association President Trae Trousdale decided to sign the resolution calling for the suspension of Alpha Phi and Kappa Sigma. Resolution 001 was drafted by Sen. (humanities) Leondre Lattimore, and Sen. (Greek) Hope Melton after a few members from Kappa Sigma and a member from Alpha Phi registered at a philanthropy event using the racial slur “Porch Monkeys” as a team name. The resolution was drafted at the request of students from the multicultural coalition (Black Student Association, Hispanic Student Association and Native American Society), after hearing of the incident. The resolution passed unanimously through the Student Services committee and in a 17-5 vote at the Sept. 19 senate meeting. Six days later and after several meetings with the heads of each organization involved, Trousdale signed Resolution 001. “There are many things that are folded into that decision, keenly being we do not feel that it is in the best interest of the student body to send this back to the student senate for another high tension senate meeting,” Trousdale said. “There’s many other conversations that went into that, but I believe that out multicultural organizations gave in areas that they could and the Greek organizations gave as well.” Between the senate meeting and deciding to sign the resolution, Trousdale said he had several meetings with SGA Vice President Abigail Banks, Destini Carrington, president of BSA, Kaycee Kernell, president of NAS, Brianna Miles, president of HSA, Matthew Moelling, president of Kappa Sigma, and Sireene Khader, president of Alpha Phi. The first meeting was for the heads of the organizations to get everything they were feeling off of their chest. The second meeting was to see if there were common terms the presidents could work toward. “Our initial plan with all of the organizations was Abby and I were working to create a collaborative agreement that would allow us to veto the resolution and walk away with an agreed-upon plan,” Trousdale said. After the meeting, Trousdale said he and Banks felt satisfied and drafted the letter of intent to send back to the student senate with the agreed upon terms. “Students had really taken the responsible step and had all come
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together and set aside pride and set aside personal agendas and were able to collaboratively reach an agreement that not only included education, but the chapters agreed to go on a voluntary campus social suspension,” Trousdale said. “They established diversity and inclusion chairs in their houses, they were planning to issue a public apology to these organizations and the multicultural coalition was planning on offering diversity and inclusion training five times a semester to the two chapters.” Trousdale said he went to different officials for them to weigh in on the situation, but just before he was ready to make his decision to veto, some last minute edits to the terms made the whole deal fall through. “Part of the fall-through was over formals and date parties.” Trousdale said. “Under any other circumstance, they would be considered a part of campus social suspension, but they did not want them to be included under campus social suspension; them being the Greek organizations.” Trousdale also said the multicultural coalition was not completely on board with the terms to begin with and wanted to see the houses be kicked off campus completely. “They would rather hear the student body agree with them that these organizations had no place on our campus, and I don’t believe they were functioning in a long-term thinking mindset of what was going to be best or what needed to be done,” Trousdale said. “They just wanted some reaction, and I think that was exactly what we were forced to do as SGA.” Destini Carrington, president of BSA, said part of the reason the deal fell through was because she felt like the multicultural coalition was doing most of the work. “The terms were a lot of the multicultural coalition educating them and going the extra mile to make sure that they knew that this wasn’t okay,” Carrington said. “It was a lot more work for us, rather than a punishment for them or consequences for them for their actions, so that middle ground, I felt, just wasn’t enough.” Kaycee Kernell, president of NAS, said the terms of the compromise were unbalanced in favor of the Greek organizations. “The terms were really getting ready for what will happen in the future when we don’t want anything to happen at all,” Kernell said. “We shouldn’t be ready for it to happen again.” Brianna Miles, president of HSA, said she hopes the resolution will make Greek organizations and the students within them more conscious of their actions. “I’m hoping that it will make those Greek organizations more
hyper-aware of what they’re doing and be a little bit more proactive before having these kinds of events, be a little bit more culturally sensitive and making sure that things are okay on both sides,” Miles said. In a statement sent to Student Publications, Alpha Phi wrote they would be supporting the terms set in Resolution 001 and suspend their operations, except for philanthropic events, for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year. The statement also included that Alpha Phi does not support any racist acts and will work to educate their students on diversity and inclusion. “Alpha Phi is working on ways to better educate our Chapter on diversity and inclusion. We will be working with the students of the multicultural organizations and the University administrators to promote diversity and inclusion,” the statement read. “We will be better equipped to take immediate action against racism, and to create a safe place for all students in the Oklahoma City University community.” Kappa Sigma sent a statement on their behalf also affirming the terms set in Resolution 001. “Kappa Sigma prides itself on promoting diversity and inclusion. The diversity of our constituents is one of our greatest strengths,” the statement read. “While our Chapter was not involved with nor aware of the creation and naming of the Alpha Phifa team, we acknowledge that the use of any offensive or discriminatory term, regardless of intent, by individuals seeking membership into our organization is indicative of the shortcomings of our society regarding multicultural sensitivity and awareness.” See page 2 to read both Kappa Sigma's and Alpha Phi's statements in full. The resolution and a letter from Trousdale will be sent to President Martha Burger, Student Affairs, Kappa Sigma President Moelling, Alpha Phi President Khader, and the respective national headquarters. Trousdale said his letter will explain the resolution and why he decided to sign it. From there, it will be up to the university and the national headquarters for each house to decide on what further action will be taken. These decisions will be made separate from one another. “It has been argued that signing this resolution is a slippery slope to an overreaching Student Senate and unchecked SGA,” Trousdale said in a letter addressed to the student body. “However, I believe that the more frightening possibility is the establishment of a culture with passively accepted racism and minimal consequences for the use of racial slurs.”
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