Volume 12, Issue 8 - Oct. 6, 1989

Page 1

THE

Outdoor adventure!

14

MSC football 18 action

ETROPOLITA_~ MSC slapped :with lawsuit Gayle Neyman Copy Editor

A lawsuit charging MSC with age discrimination bas been filed in federal court by the Equal Employment ~pportunity Commission. . The complaint, filed Sept. 27, alleges that the college unlawfully modified the terms of Marguerite Shackelford's employment "She was a supervisor in the accounts payable department and they demoted her, and did some other things to her that . we felt were uncalled for," said Joseph Sims, a trial attorney ,.... for EEOC. According to the complaint, Shackleford was forced into early retirement on Aug. 31, 1987. "She certainly alleged that that's the case. I don't believe the college would agree with that," said Bruce Pech, an attorney for Metro. "She was reassigned to different duties." ~ Pech referred further questions to the State Attorney General's office. Sims said the next step would be to wait for the college to resoond to the complaint. Metro has 20 days from the date of Service to respond, according to the federal clerk of the oourt's office. However, the clerk's office had no infor-. -nation about whether the college had been served. Once the college responds to the complaint, Sims said, the EEOC will begin taking formal interrogatories, written questions, asking the college "to explain under oath what happened in her case in detail," Sims said. "We11 interview various people in her department." • According to the complaint, representatives of EEOC tried through informal methods to get the college to voluntarily comply with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act before filing the lawsuit EEOC is askingfor Sbackelford's reinstatement, back pay and damages. \ Officials from the Equal Opportunity Office at Metro declined to ~ the case. D

'Westword's' A bas -defends CU story •

David 0. Wllllams The Metropolitan

To Bryan Abas, his article about the University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, his daughter and the late Sal Aunese titled "That Sinning Season" "' [Westword 8/30), was a straight-ahead run right up the middle. Publicly, though, Abas and W estword have been blitzed from all sides. In the two ~ues of Westword following the controversial article, there have been 12 letters blasting the story and a mere three supporting it Several advertisers have pulled their ads from W estword. And the rest of the front range media has roasted Abas and his editors for running the story. Despite the negative response and the fact

..J •

that Sal Aunese, the former CU quarterback and the f8tbec ofBuffS' coach Bill McCartney's grandson, died lt5 than two weeks ago of stomach cancer, Ahas has had no second thoughts about the way the article was written or the decision that it was news. "No regrets - absolutely none - about having run the article," said Abas. "On the judgment about whether it's news? No. About the manner in which the story was written? No. About the timing of the story? No. No regrets." The Westward article was the first to openly discuss the fact that Timothy Mc.<:artney is the son of Aunese and Kristyn McCartney, Bill McCartney's daughter. Ata memorial service for Aunese in Boulder on Sept 25, McCartney said publicly for the first time that Aunese was the father of 6-

month-old Timothy, his grandson. Both Denver dailies ran stories on Sept 26 focusing on McCartney's remarks. Many critics of the Westward article said that it was no more than a rehash of the well-documented problems surrounding the CU football program and that the only new piece of information was the part dealing with Aunese and Kristyn's relationship and their son Timothy. Even that, it was charged, was unsubtantiated. That lack ofevidence, said Mike Madigan, the news editor at the Rocky Mountain News, was the main factor in the News' decision not to run anything on the Aunese/ Kristyn McCartney situation despite rumors that have been Boating around since eaily this year. "At that time," Madigan said, "we didn't

think that there was enough evidence, that it was substantiated enough. It was a big campus rumor." Madigan was the sports editor at the News at the time of the W estword article. Abas said his story was substantiated and that the main reason the Denver dailies did nothing with the story was that they have a . hands-off policy regarding CU. "The editors of the dailies are reluctant to offend a program that is widely followed. They give it [CU] an awful lot of free publicity, and it's the flasship institution of higher learning in the state. When you have editors with backbones made of jelly, like at the dailies, they are rductant to go after an established part of the system like that," Ahas said. •Mll111-8


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.