The Utah Anti-Discrimination Division may be wrongly dismissing complaints and ruling against those who file them so it can get federal money, according to a state investigation.
The federal government pays the state agency $500 per case that is closed within a fiscal year. Last year, federal money made up 60 percent of UADD's budget."The quickest way to close a case is to rule against the (complainant)," said attorney Mike Martinez, chairman of the Utah Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Employers, he said, almost always appeal a ruling against them, while individuals do not.
For the past four years the Utah Advisory Committee has been investigating the Utah Anti-Discrimination Division, which dismisses or rules against those complaining 95 percent of the time.
UADD has been criticized for years by civil rights groups, and officials hoped this investigation would get at the heart of the problem. The Utah committee conducted the probe with the blessing and help of the national Commission on Civil Rights.
In fact, it was the staff at the national Commission's Denver office who wrote the report on the Utah findings, and the national group is supposed to publish it, according to the agency's standard practice. It's been that way for decades.
That is, until this year.
In September, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission voted 4-4 on whether to publish the Utah report, which is highly critical of Utah's Anti-Discrimination Division. It implies that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is at least partly to blame for problems at the Utah agency.
The tie vote means the Utah report doesn't get published.
It is the fourth time this year that the national commission - which exists solely to publish studies on civil rights issues and has at times recommended investigations into federal agencies that weren't complying with the law - has voted not to publish reports. The other three instances dealt with Affirmative Action, while Utah's dealt with employment issues.
The decision stunned and angered Utah's Advisory Committee and community leaders. But it also doesn't sit well with at least one of the commissioners who voted to publish the report.
Yvonne Lee, commissioner from San Francisco, was in Salt Lake City Thursday night and attended the Utah Advisory Committee's meeting. She was asked by committee members why the commission voted not to publish the Utah report.
"All four of us (who voted to publish) are very baffled at the vote," she said. "I am puzzled when people use terms like `it's not balanced . . . fair'. I wonder what criteria they use to determine that. Who are we to say, who do not live in Utah, this is not an accurate report?"
"Unfortunately, that was the only reason given."
Then Lee told the Utah group it was her personal opinion that the state report was a "victim in a national trend to abolish the civil rights gains made in the last three decades."
"I don't think it's purely coincidence," she said. "I think it's part of a pattern. People are very afraid to have other voices heard . . . I think this is a very dangerous trend."
"It is their way of saying, `let's see who gets worn down first,"' she said.
Utah officials are frustrated because they've spent years trying to find a reason for the UADD's ineffectiveness. Martinez said the state has tried to remedy problems in a number of ways.
The agency got a new director, instituted standards of training for investigators, conducted audits of investigators and formed an advisory committee.
"Nothing changed the numbers," Martinez said. "The only thing that hasn't changed is the federal government's contract. So we said, `let's look at that."'
He said the federal contract - which is the same in every state that uses federal money to investigate discrimination claims - causes the problems.
"It turns out they (UADD) have a reason to be bad," he said. "They get federal money to be bad."
The report provides a detailed look at the practices of UADD and comes to some critical conclusions. Attached to the report is an audit done in 1996 by the Legislative Auditor General, which comes to some of the same conclusions.
Martinez said the U.S. Civil Rights Commission ought to question its own existence when it refuses to publish reports its own staff generates - effectively stifling debate on critical issues.
"We didn't write one sentence of this report," he said. "It's tax money that put that report together, and (taxpayers) should be able to see it."
Mary Berry, chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission apparently agreed, as she raised that very issue when the group voted not to publish Utah's report.
"In the last few weeks as I've been traveling around the country, people have said to me `Why does the civil rights commission need to exist?' And I must tell you I have a question in my own mind why we should continue to exist . . . There are all kinds of issues (that need to be addressed) and this commission is nowhere to be found," Berry said.
Thursday night, Utah's Advisory Committee to the commission voted to ask the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to conduct an investigation into the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
The Utah committee also decided it would find the money to make copies of the report and disseminate them locally.
"The system, the process has failed us," said committee member Timothy Funk. "It's simply an outrage to me personally and professionally."
Despite their disappointment and frustration, Utah committee members said they're not giving up on reforming UADD or taking on other uncomfortable issues.
"If (UADD) is not doing their job, how can that be good for civil rights?" Martinez asked. "People aren't being helped. This is a much bigger problem than we think it is."