USCIS is calling South Dakota corrupt; now the U.S. Department of Justice is calling us racist.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sued the South Dakota Department of Social Services for discriminating against American Indian job applicants on Pine Ridge:
According to the complaint, in October 2010, Cedric Goodman, a Native American with supervisory experience as a social worker, as well as several other well-qualified Native Americans, applied for an Employment Specialist position at DSS’s Pine Ridge Office. The complaint alleges that after interviewing Goodman and the other Native American candidates who met the employer’s objective job qualifications, DSS removed the vacancy and hired no one. The next day, however, DSS reopened the position and ultimately selected a white applicant with inferior qualifications and no similar work experience. The complaint alleges that DSS discriminated against Goodman and other similarly-situated Native American applicants based on their race.
In addition, the complaint alleges that denying Goodman’s application was part of a pattern or practice of race discrimination by DSS, where the agency repeatedly removed job postings and used subjective, arbitrary hiring practices to reject qualified Native American applicants for Specialist positions.
Over a two year period beginning in 2010, DSS posted 18 Specialist vacancies for its Pine Ridge Reservation Office. Even though the agency received nearly 40 percent of its applications from Native Americans, DSS hired 11 Whites and only one Native American, while removing six other openings entirely [U.S. Department of Justice, press release, 2015.11.03].
To be specific, according to the complaint, when Goodman applied, he brought bachelor’s degrees in human services and business administration, “five years of experience as a social worker, three-and-a- half years of experience as a supervisory social worker with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and four years of experience as an Employment Specialist with the South Dakota Job Seeker Services.” DSS hiring officer Keith Kearns (who makes $55,187.68 a year as Social Services Supervisor at Pine Ridge) passed over Goodman and other qualified Indian applicants and hired a white woman who had just graduated that year from university and whose work experience was limited to retail and office work.
Goodman first took the discrimination charge to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and alleged that DSS has a policy of hiring whites for better-paying jobs and Indians for lower-paying jobs. EEOC found “reasonable cause” to believe Goodman’s allegations and sought a voluntary settlement with the state. Apparently DSS resisted, so EEOC bumped the complaint up to DOJ, and here we are in court.
DOJ says the proper remedy for South Dakota’s “subjective and arbitrary hiring practices” is to hire Goodman for the next DSS Employment Specialist job at Pine Ridge and give Goodman and other qualified applicants backpay plus interest for the jobs they should have gotten.
South Dakota fails to focus economic development efforts on the reservations to create jobs; now the Department of Justice says the state itself turns down Indians for jobs. That sounds like one more reason to clean house in Pierre as soon as possible.
Before a suit is ever brought the EEOC communicates with the alleged offender to try to reach resolution. The fact a suit was brought tells me that the State of South Dakota told the Cedric Goodman and the EEOC to go pound sand. Yet again, the state would rather spend money on attorney fees than do what it should have done in the first place – and what it will eventually be forced by the court to do.
South Dakota people are good people. They just don’t pay attention to politics. They vote Republican because their parents voted Republican and then this kinda stuff happens. This blog is probably the most important thing on the internet in the state.
Also, the EEOC works at a glacial pace. It takes them years to investigate a complaint and act on it. As you can see from the article above, this suit involves complaints dating back to the period of 2010-2012. The fact a suit is being brought in 2015 indicates that the state has not addressed the underlying issues in the ensuing years. Now, even if the EEOC didn’t conclude its investigation promptly, the state of SD would have been notified of the complaint and been compelled to respond soon after the complaint was filed. So the state has known about this issue for years and not addressed it.
With turnover in the social work arena, that new grad hired over Cedric Goodman is probably gone and replaced by someone else besides Cedric Goodman – who has apparently been passed over for less qualified people repeatedly.
… and the beat goes on. Again, the only surprising aspect to any of these situations – EB-5 and cover-up, SOS Gant and related corruption, GEAR-UP tragedy, now this EEO matter – is the people who were well aware of the mis-deeds and once discovered express shock and outrage.
DSS too often flies under the radar. But let’s not forget the Talliaferro/Schwab debacle and SD’s questionable compliance with ICWA – and now this. Major reform is needed at DSS.
DSS has to be about the money. In South Dakota, when you do stuff like this, there is something going on under the table. It could be the ICWA that is driving the cash to the bandits, that is for sure. With this gang, they do not do anything that they cannot profit from illegally.
We also need to remain vigilant on the September 2015 Federal law suit filed by former DCI Agent Laura Zylstra Kaiser against the South Dakota Attorney General’s office for sexual harassment.
The injustices toward Ms. Kaiser came to the forefront on November 4, 2011 – the exact same day the Schwab/Taliaferro (code red) malicious prosecution was set into play.
It took nearly 4 years for Laura to be able to file her complaint federally because as you state Rorschach, EEOC moves carefully and slowly throughout the entire civil legal process.
Good to hear from you Ms. Schwab. Hope things are going well for you.
I had already forgotten about Ms. Kaiser’s suit. You know, as Bill Janklow proved in Dick Butler’s Citibank suit, the Governor has the authority to settle any and all lawsuits prosecuted or defended by lower elected officials. Leadership is called for. There’s a novel idea.
DCI Agent Laura Zylstra Kaiser against the South Dakota Attorney General’s office for sexual harassment.
NEVER FORGET …
The DSS practices of racism and discrimination on the Pine Ridge Reservation have not been going on for a few years, they have been going on for decades.
When I lived on the reservation a number of years ago there were hardly any Indians working for DSS and none in supervisory positions.
If you ever traveled to the border towns of Rushville, Gordon, or Chadron, NE early in the morning,you would see the wives of farmers and ranchers traveling to Pine Ridge to work at DSS. Yes, they not only hired mostly whites, they hired non-residents. I’ve been away for a number of years now, but I would wager the situation hasn’t changed. I’d like to see a roster of current state employees working in any state agency on the reservation.
There are a number of well qualified Indians like Cedric Goodman on the reservation and it is wrong of the state not to use them, especially when they are well qualified
Roger, maybe the reason for Nebraskans to work there is that no one can keep track of them through the state as they are non residents. I wonder if it is that way at Standing Rock or at Rosebud or any other border reservation.
Jerry,
I really don’t know about the other reservations in the state, but I would speculate their hiring practices are similar to Pine Ridge.
It is kind of sad to read about how so many think that the reservations are so lawless when we all see this every day. Hundreds of millions of un-traced money that has disappeared in the hands of corrupted government officials that we have put in charge through elections in our state. Dead guys, burned estates, intrigue all over the civilized areas. Open oppression with complete disregard of civil rights continue until finally they are called on them. In the meantime, services that could have been rendered in a more efficient way have been forsaken due to the corruption.
well said jerry.
eeoc may be the only recourse for low income people, sddhr (human rights) certainly seems adept at insulating the state from abhorent institutional practices like these. top down leadership could help. its all about philosophy.
Porter, we totally agree on the value of this blog. We part in agreement on whether the SD people are “good” – for decades of willful blindness, uninquisitiveness, and blatant disinterest do not make a good people — otherwise we could claim the white southerners of the Jim Crow-era were peaches.