Mr. Shelton’s former supervisor, Cpl. Rebecca Tolbert, who is black,admitted on the witness stand that “black people don’t like whitepeople.”
A Hamilton County jury has awarded $300,000 to a white former UTCpolice officer who claims he was fired after complaining about reverseracism and a culture of protecting black employees that exists in theschool’s police department.
According to testimony from the four-day trial in which Sean Sheltonsought about $28,000 in back pay, the former officer said theUniversity of Tennessee at Chattanooga fired him in 2004 forcomplaining about a “hostile” work environment in which blackcolleagues and supervisors harassed him and accused him of beingracist. At the same time, they called him derogatory names associatedwith white people such as “honky” and “redneck,” he said.
“This (lawsuit) was all to clear his name,” said Mr. Shelton’s wife, Jennifer Shelton, who wept while the jury read the verdict.
UTC Chancellor of Finance and Operations Richard Brown said the university will consider appealing the case.
“All the allegations are unsubstantiated,” Dr. Brown said. “There is no discrimination of any kind within the UTC police force.”
Mr. Shelton’s former supervisor, Cpl. Rebecca Tolbert, who is black,admitted on the witness stand that “black people don’t like whitepeople.”
Ms. Tolbert also testified that she at one time threatened to killMr. Shelton, but justified the remark because she said she was scaredof him. In an effort to smear his name, Ms. Tolbert admitted to tellingpeople the former officer was a “psycho” and a “misogynist.”
She also testified to deliberately trying to scare a private citizenby telling the person that she expected Mr. Shelton to “rape somebody.”
When Mr. Shelton complained to his two white supervisors, however, they seemed to indicate that their hands were tied.
“It’s like I told you, Sean. You’re not a protected class ofcitizen,” Paul Dodds, the former UTC head sergeant, told Mr. Sheltonduring a recorded conversation played for the jury. “Wake up, face it.They can call us whatever they want, OK? We’re not protected, they are.”
Several jurors said the evidence made it clear that the school’spolice department has a “serious problem” when it comes to race issues.
“The judgment was our way of making a statement and bringing aboutchange from the leadership down,” said the jury forewoman, who did notwant her name printed because she was afraid of retaliation. “No classof citizen should be protected over another class of citizen. Not inthis day and time.”
Jurors said they based their decision partly on the fact that Dr.Brown, who is black, did not appear in court to address testimony fromthe former university police chief that Dr. Brown “micromanages” thepolice force and tends to make decisions that favor black people.
Because the university chose not to call Dr. Brown as a witness,Chancellor Howell Peoples said the jury could, under state law, assumehis testimony might have been unfavorable to the university’s case.
“For him not to show up and represent the university … thatweighed heavily on our decision,” one juror said. That juror, like theforewoman and every other panelist, did not want his name printed forfear of backlash.
Dr. Brown said Wednesday that he gladly would have testified, and henoted that the UTC police chief is the one who makes personneldecisions within the department.
Attorneys for UTC had said Mr. Shelton lost his job after improperlyturning on his blue lights and pursuing a man in North Georgia while hewas off duty. Mr. Shelton showed “gross misconduct,” they said, arguingthat race played no part in his firing.
Mr. Shelton’s lawyers pointed out that he never received a warningor any disciplinary action for his conduct at work. Instead, theyclaim, UTC fired him without an internal audit of the incident inGeorgia because Mr. Shelton had a history of complaining about thereverse racism issues.
Another former UTC police officer, Abner Miranda, has a similarlawsuit pending in which the same allegations of reverse discriminationare made.
Mr. Shelton’s lawyer, Harry Burnette, said they are “thrilled” with the jury’s decision.
“I’m just amazed that, in this day and age, reverse discriminationexists, and I am befuddled that discrimination exists at all. Thereality is, it still does,” Mr. Burnette said.
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