The complaint, filed May 28 by LC employees Christine Mills, Priscilla Ijeomah, and Amy Barnes, charges that “the Library of Congress through its offices, officials, agents, and representatives have continuously discriminated and continues to discriminate on the basis of color, race, national origin, and sex,” according to the June 2 The Hill. It alleges that minority employees are assigned to the “least desirable jobs and lines of progression wherein opportunities for training and advancement are limited” and are denied “training details and other experience building assignments which would enhance their promotability.”
The plaintiffs ask LC to take six remedial steps, including “modification or elimination” of discriminatory acts, preferential consideration of minorities for positions from which they were blocked, and compensation “by awards of back pay. . . for all earnings, wages, and other benefits they would have received but for the discriminatory practices.”
An LC spokeswoman declined to comment to The Hill. After being found guilty in 1992 of racial bias in a class-action discrimination lawsuit that took 10 years to settle, LC paid a total of $8.5 million to some 2,000 employees and revised its employment practices.
Posted June 4, 2004; modified July 15, 2004.