By Christopher Warburton.
Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.
This evil phenomenon is found in all countries—big and small, rich and poor—but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive. Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a Government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice and discouraging foreign aid and investment. Corruption is a key element in economic underperformance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development. (The United Nations Convention Against Corruption).
It is not surprising that the US ratified the treaty on 30th October, 2006. Among other things, the States Parties to the convention (treaty), including the US, are very concerned about the seriousness of the problems and threats that are posed by corruption to the stability and security of societies. Corruption undermines the institutions and values of democracy and jeopardizes the ethical values and the rule of law in any nation. In every uncodified and codified legal system certain principles are held to be sacrosanct, one of which is that nations are obligated to uphold treaties that they have ratified (PACTA SUNT SERVANDA). This universal principle has been reaffirmed by the Vienna Law of Treaties (Art. 34).
When rational people think about justice, they are not likely to think about corruption. This is because justice and corruption are mutually exclusive expressions. The prevalence of corruption negates the essence or relevance of justice. That is, justice is meaningless when the infrastructure for its administration is infected by corruption. Although the existence of corruption is probably as ancient as the human species, there has come a time when nations of the world are very worried about its corrosive effects on their societies.
In fact, in some societies some have paid the ultimate price for corrupting less discerning minds. Of course, corrupting less discerning minds is equally as troubling as subverting a system of justice by kleptocrats, plutocrats, and so-called “academics.” Unfortunately, the expression, “academics,” which was once an accolade of virtue that embodied the synthesis of knowledge and ethical principles is rapidly becoming an anachronism of its prototypical form.
Why is it that some academics (not all) have lost their way? The simple answer is that the badly nurtured and unprincipled “academics” have become obsessively corrupt in a new gilded age of patronage, social anxiety, and tensions that are reminiscent of the backwardness that was exhibited in the US of the 1870s (the old Gilded Age). In their state of rottenness, they have garnered help from “powerful” political friends and jurists to indulge in the belief that they can thumb their noses at the US justice system with impunity. They bask in frivolity and vigorously participate in the black market for justice where justice is bought and sold with deleterious effects.
In furthering the ambitions of the badly nurtured academics, the New York EEOC has provided a very robust black-market with immeasurable negative externalities. While the surreptitious arrangements of corruption provide unimaginable callousness and bravery, the quality of a public duty is very often too transparent and revealing of willful negligence. Others have extensively alluded to the bribery and corruption that has infested the agency and analogously identified with any cesspool of corruption. This piece will focus on negligent investigation and how the agency has betrayed the trust of those who sacrificed their lives for justice and liberty in the United States of America.
PROPOSITION1: Disregarding the details of charges
By disregarding the details of relevant charges, the EEOC can deliberately redefine the essence of a civil right complaint to the benefit of the defendants as a pretext for dismissing charges. That is an investigator may not ask questions about the central issues of a complaint even when he/she has been unmistakably directed to do so. Consider the following:
Scenario 1: If a complaint is about the failure to conduct an internal investigation about discrimination, the EEOC investigator will not conduct an investigation on the matter or report on the specificity of the matter as part of his/her investigative obligation when it could be determined that an internal investigation was not conducted. By so doing, the matter will be mute and the defendants will be absolved of any wrongdoing.
Scenario 2: The New York EEOC will not investigate or report on whether or not someone has been denied due process.
Scenario 3: A New York EEOC investigator may not report on whether or not identical standards were applied to all employees—blacks and whites or Jews and Gentiles even when a complaint is about discriminatory standards. If similarly situated employees are required by written bylaws to perform the same task, it may not matter if an entity encourages duplicitous standards.
The corrupt New York EEOC will bless the discriminatory standards to subvert the Civil Rights Law. That is, it will be okay for one employee to write fairy tales about roaches, rats, and ants while another is required to write scholarly pieces about substantive issues that generate positive externalities. Discriminatory rottenness is glorified internally and affirmed by corrupt New York EEOC officials. Advocating for the devil, one can easily be sympathetic to a level of ignorance for matters that might seem technical. But these corrupt officials are not required to make technical decisions. They are barely required to identify uniform or discriminatory standards of evaluations, which they are unwilling to do.
PROPOSITION 2: Accommodating the maximum amount of perjurious statements
When a professor cannot count the number of publications that he has in a genre of literary work and dishonestly makes proprietary claim to publications, the New York EEOC officials should at least be able to count like any elementary school student. It is equally embarrassing for an institution to not know anything about the quality and quantity of the product of its employees. Ignorance is no pretext for providing perjurious and delightful testimony. Additionally, it is not okay for administrators or court officials to provide perjurious testimony with the blessing of the New York EEOC.
Assuming that the New York EEOC officials cannot count, they should at least be numerically literate enough to know something about itemization when someone else has done their work for them. Willfully misquoting numbers or categorizing things and willingly accepting the wrongful presentation of facts are indications of the rarely rivaled corruption.
All savvy investigators, except some at the New York EEOC and the Director, know that dissembling and misrepresentation of facts are pretexts for covering up criminal activity and subverting the administration of justice.
A more damning manifestation of corruption is the disregard of clear and convincing ocular evidence. When information can be verified easily and costlessly, the EEOC should not disregard such evidence in favor of anecdotal and inaccurate misrepresentations of facts by defendants. For example, the Federal Reserve Bank and the American Economic Association generally provide acceptable data that are free and ocular.
PROPOSITION 3: Manufacturing evidence with the help of defendants
When employees are not similarly situated, it is not okay to presume that they are just because the EEOC wants to fabricate the details of an investigation for the purposes of misleading Federal Courts. It is not okay to compare a lawyer to an economist, nor is it okay to compare a part-time worker to a full time worker in an attempt to desperately exonerate defendants from illegal practices. Investigators generally know that they should check the background and credentials of employees, except some of those at the New York EEOC, who will want people to believe that the token part-time employment of someone of color is a precondition for assuming that no discriminatory practice is taking place in a place of work.
One should be hard-pressed to know that the New York EEOC officials do not know the meaning of “similarly situated employees”—the very crux of the Civil Rights Law that they are expected to litigate. It is incorrect for an official with no training in economics to be conveniently considered as an economist just because the defendants are frantically trying to cover-up criminal activity. Evidently, once the fabrication has been peddled in the market of corruption, the New York EEOC does not think that an investigation is necessary to ascertain facts.
PROPOSITION 4: Tolerating the maximum amount of contempt.
It is not appropriate for defendants to withhold evidence and contemptuously thumb their noses at investigative procedures with impunity and acquiescence. Yet, the New York EEOC will consider its investigation complete when defendants withhold evidence. It is unimaginable that any fact-finding body will tolerate such a reckless and audacious behavior as proper investigative practice. When a defendant is asked to release information in a quasi-judicial matter, the defendant must be willing and able do so.
A defendant must not be applauded and rewarded for contemptuous behavior. The issuance of a just order must be contingent on the compliance with investigative procedures. Someone with 40 years or more of evidence should not willfully fail to submit such evidence and the New York EEOC must not be oblivious of the deleterious effects of such contempt. Failing to provide evidence because of embarrassment or guilt is not a trivial legal or investigative issue that should be treated with cavalier approval.
PROPOSITION 5: There is nothing wrong with retaliation
The New York retaliation law that the New York District EEOC is expected to litigated is very clear:
“It is unlawful for an employer to discharge, expel or otherwise discriminate against any person because he or she has opposed any practices forbidden under the law, or because he or she has filed a complaint, testified or assisted in any proceeding under this article.”
The behavior of New York EEOC personnel does not encourage anyone to report any criminal activity in the workplace and the behavior is at cross-purposes with the Civil Rights Act. This is because reporting a criminal act, say employment improprieties, and being victimized for reporting a crime will not be considered by the New York EEOC to be a retaliatory act.
More so, the New York EEOC will have reasonable people believe that when a complaint has been filed about discriminatory practices against supervisors, employers can willingly allow the supervisors to preside over the employment decisions of the complaining employees while the supervisors are “being investigated.” In effect, the New York EEOC cannot interpret New York State Human Rights Law and the Federal Law against retaliation. This is a curious anomaly because the agency is an existential threat to State and Federal law as well as the well being of victims of civil rights abuses. Consequently, the agency exists for unknown reasons; maybe so, because the corrupt employees derive personal benefits. The progress of the criminal gang MUST be stopped on its tracks.
PROPOSITION 6: Failure to report criminal activity
The New York EEOC sees no compelling reason to report criminal activity. While high school students are sufficiently being educated to report cyber-bullying and have become very sensitive to its occurrence, the New York EEOC is aloof or indifferent to cyber-harassment.
The Civil Rights Act was legislated to prevent workplace hostility, including cyber-harassment that makes it impossible for employees to have a peaceful work environment. While high school students are sensitive to the untoward behavior of cyber-bullying, very sick professionals with terminal degrees are permitted to degenerate to a level that is less than worthless benchmarks to engage in cyber-harassment. Consistently and criminally altering personal data on the World Wide Web is a criminal offense that must not be tolerated by any agency or institution. In fact, it must promptly be reported to the appropriate Federal authorities.
Yet, because the New York EEOC is indifferent to workplace hostility, it is unwilling to investigate any aspect of cyber-harassment or report on it. The pitiful evidence of the performance of the New York EEOC over a sixteen-year period raises a very salient question: Who is the New York State EEOC representing? It should be apparent by now that it is representing white collar criminals in clandestine and unregulated markets where the rights of workers are traded for profits and personal benefits.
When favoritism and corruption infect the US educational system, policymakers should quickly wake up from their torpor. Inertial corruption is not an acceptable attribute of any civilized society. The robust and vibrant shadow-market for justice generates undesirable negative externalities that are detrimental to the very vulnerable in the US. Sadly, one must now ask: What is left of justice and how can it be redefined in a country that prides itself on being the beacon of hope and fairness to the rest of the world? For the sake of the prosperity of future generations, it is now time to put the white collar criminals of the New York EEOC and their patrons out of business.
Indeed, Ricardo Jones is correct. The New York EEOC is “a cesspool of corruption,” and I must add, an existential threat to justice everywhere in the US. The ratification of the Convention of Against Corruption should mean something and the New York EEOC might be a good place to start.
