Does the Kansas City VA discriminate? These Black former employees are going to court
Current and former Black employees at medical centers run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, including in Kansas City and Topeka, claim they’ve experienced systemic racial discrimination. Some of the charges go back years.
Lawyers have filed dozens of federal lawsuits in Missouri and Kansas claiming the VA tolerates a racially hostile and abusive work environment.
The lawsuits, the most recent filed last month, allege workers endured racial slurs and sexually suggestive language from superiors. Plaintiffs also said supervisors repeatedly passed them over for promotions. They also claim the VA ignored their complaints and that they faced backlash for speaking out.
If those caring for our veterans in the nation’s largest health care system face harassment, that’s disgraceful. And if the VA looks the other way, Congress should investigate.
“For an organization to have (dozens of) active complaints of discrimination is unheard of,” said Cain Davis, a retired VA employee now working as a consultant with individuals and companies involved in civil rights complaints.
Responding to the lawsuits piling up, the Kansas City VA Medical Center said in a statement to to The Star that it “is proud of its diverse and inclusive culture,” and “does not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind. … Every discrimination complaint is thoroughly investigated and handled appropriately.”
The statement added that the Kansas City VA medical center is committed to inclusion and last year hired its first diversity, equity and inclusion officer.
At the VA Eastern Kansas in Topeka, after current and former employees aired complaints about being discriminated against, the facility’s director Rudy Klopfer said, “Diversity is so very important to me,” and it is “what makes the strength of the VA and taking care of our veterans.”
Unfortunately, many of the VA’s workers don’t share Klopfer’s view that the VA takes diversity seriously. Last Wednesday, Davis led a group of current and former VA workers who called on the VA Eastern Kansas to end the discrimination they said has been unaddressed for years.
“I know personally of a young lady who killed herself over discrimination, so I don’t take it lightly,” Davis said. “These people are victims.”
Last summer, former Kansas City VA Medical Center employee Michael Hill, who is Black, filed a civil lawsuit in federal court alleging he was frequently called “boy” by supervisors, and on other occasions he was called “a crackhead.”
In 2018, another former Kansas City VA employee, Monica Watson, who worked as a medical records coding specialist, claimed her supervisor frequently used racial epithets directed toward Black women and referred to the women who worked for her as “the black bitches.”
And in a suit filed in April, DaShaun McCray, a nurse manager who worked at the VA hospital in Wichita, alleged she was forced to leave her job because she was “severely and pervasively” harassed and discriminated against because of her race.
After David Isaacks, the former director of the Kansas City VA, resigned last year amid allegations of systemic racism, Nimrod Chapel, an attorney representing current and former VA employees, said the departure opened up an opportunity for the VA, “particularly in Kansas City,” to change its ways. The agency needs to “accept responsibility for the conduct and harm that has been brought, not only to the employees — Black, female, male, veterans included — but also people receiving services there,” Chapel said.
If any of these allegations are true — and there are so many, it’s hard to think none are — the continuing blight of racism hurts and diminishes all employees working at the VA and caring for veterans.
With so many veterans needing its services, including those involved in the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the VA can hardly afford to keep paying out millions of dollars in civil lawsuit settlements when it should be focusing on patients’ care.