Based on claims that the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) failed to provide female veterans with the same job training classes as their male counterparts, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex-discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor against ABCCM. The complaint was filed today on behalf of U.S. Army veteran Emily Bagby.
In the complaint, the Southern Poverty Law Center makes four requests:
1. Accept jurisdiction and fully investigate these claims
2. Compel ABCCM to overhaul its current policies and practices that prohibit female veterans from participating in the job training and educational programs provided to male veterans
3. Monitor and track the provision of job training and educational programs through the Veterans Restoration Quarters at ABCCM to ensure that there is an equal opportunity for female veterans to participate in these programs; and
4. Grant any and all relief to complainant and similarly situated persons as appropriate to remedy the discrimination described herin and as determined by any investigation into these claims.
Attempts to reach ABCCM’s director Rev. Scott Rogers for comment were unsuccessful at the time of this writing. Earlier this year, ABCCM’s veteran services for men and women was recognized as one of the four best practices in the country in a May publication by the U.S. Department of Labor. The nonprofit’s Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS) program was highly praised in the publication. When Rogers traveled to Washington, D.C. earlier this year to speak about ABCCM, he told Xpress that the program placed 302 veterans in the workforce at a cost of about $1,000 per veteran—a number that is $1,600 less than the national average per placement.
The full press release regarding the sexual discrimination claim can be read below in full. It can also be found online at the Southern Poverty Law Center website.
The full press release from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a sex discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor today against the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) for failing to provide female veterans with the same job training classes male veterans receive through the organization’s federally funded programs.
The complaint, filed on behalf of U.S. Army veteran Emily Bagby and other female veterans, describes how female veterans are excluded from job training and educational programs provided to male veterans such as truck driving, training for “green” jobs and culinary arts. Instead, female veterans are offered classes such as knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to de-clutter your room, self-esteem and Bible study.
“Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry’s discriminatory policy is insulting and demeaning to all female veterans,” said Christine P. Sun, deputy legal director for the SPLC. “These women served their country, just like male veterans, and are entitled to the same dignity and respect. The classes offered to the female veterans seem like they are designed to help them become better housewives, not become independent like the job training offered to the men.”
By failing to provide the same services to these veterans, the organization is discriminating on the basis of sex, violating the nondiscrimination and equal opportunity provisions of the Workforce Investment Act administered by the Department of Labor. The SPLC’s complaint asks the department to end this discrimination by compelling the organization to overhaul its policies. It also urges the department to monitor the ministry’s programs to ensure it no longer discriminates against female veterans.
During a March 14 hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the ABCCM’s executive director, the Rev. Scott Rogers, said that his organization helped place more than 300 veterans into the workforce last year.
At the same hearing, he noted that male veterans are provided 24 different job training programs at their Veterans Restoration Quarters while female veterans are offered 16 different “personal skill-building” programs at the Steadfast House, the organization’s housing facility for female veterans.
Bagby lived at the Steadfast House from July 2011 to February 2012 after she found herself homeless during a period of unemployment. She hoped that ABCCM would help prepare her to re-enter the civilian workforce, but she and the other female veterans were not provided the opportunity to participate in the job-training programs offered to men at the restoration quarters. She also did not receive any meaningful assistance with obtaining social services, applying to school or obtaining employment or permanent housing. Bagby left Steadfast without the skills needed for future employment and self-sufficiency.
“I am asking that female veterans have the same opportunities to better themselves as the men,” she said. “Women had to fight for equality in the military. We shouldn’t have to fight for it as civilians.”
By denying women access to the job training and educational programming opportunities, ABCCM is exacerbating existing barriers for female veterans. Female veterans are already four times more likely than their civilian counterparts to experience homelessness. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, this is occurring because female veterans are unable to achieve access into the labor market. Female veterans often experience a lack of job training and skills assessments, and difficulty transferring the skills obtained while in the military to the civilian economy.
ABCCM is composed of approximately 300 churches in Asheville and Buncombe County, N.C. It provides services to veterans, the homeless and families in poverty. The organization received funding from the Department of Labor’s Veterans Workforce Investment Program and the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program for its job-training programs and services for veterans. ABCCM recently received $200,000 from the Department of Labor to help re-integrate homeless veterans into the civilian workforce through job training and other services in 2012.
ABCCM also receives federal aid through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Grant and Per Diem Program. This money provides supportive housing and services to homeless veterans. With four such programs, which encompass 158 beds for homeless men and women, Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry is the third-largest contractor of Grant and Per Diem Program services in the country.
Other attorneys on the case include Eden Heilman, senior staff attorney at the SPLC’s Louisiana office, and Meghann K. Burke of the law firm of Cogburn & Brazil, P.A., in Asheville, N.C.
A copy of the complaint can be viewed at http://www.splcenter.org.
“1. Accept jurisdiction and fully investigate these claims”
The Department of Labor should be abolished. They have absolutely NO legitimate jurisdiction over the affairs of innocent private organizations conducting their own businesses as they see fit. (Innocent means that they have not curtailed, or in any way, interfered with the rights of others. No one has a right to the labor, time, effort, property or capital of another.) If anyone takes issue with ABCCM’s conduct of business, they would have the option (if we had a free market) of competing with ABCCM for consumers of their products or services. The problem is not private business. The problem is government interference in an unfree market in service-delivery. The violation of individual rights is what the Southern Poverty Law Center advocates. This kind of oppression against free-acting private organizations is illiberal and offensive to the American ideal of political and economic freedom.
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Except when said private organization receives public funds.
“The organization received funding from the Department of Labor
So to be sure I understand, you are saying it is OK for this organization to discriminate against female veterans, right? If I got it right, please explain to me how that is moral and right because I don’t get it.
Timothy, let me get this right. You are saying that it is ok for the tax exempt church to discriminate against female veterans. Did I get that correct? If so, please explain to me how that is ok and moral and right and legal because I don’t get it.
By virtue of being tax exempt the church is publicly funded, and their program receives additional public funds. They are not a business, they are a non-profit organization whose by-laws make it clear that as a non-profit their mission is one of service.
You can see my confusion because your post ignores these considerations, which seem so obvious to me. Please explain your position further. Thank you.
Timothy, let me get this right. You are saying that it is ok for the tax exempt church to discriminate against female veterans. Did I get that correct? If so, please explain to me how that is ok and moral and right and legal because I don’t get it.
By virtue of being tax exempt the church is publicly funded, and their program receives additional public funds. They are not a business, they are a non-profit organization whose by-laws make it clear that as a non-profit their mission is one of service.
You can see my confusion because your post ignores these considerations, which seem so obvious to me. Please explain your position further. Thank you.
“Did I get that correct? If so, please explain to me how that is ok and moral and right and legal”
1. You got that correct.
2. As I indicated above, in a free market, which we do not have, it is morally right for a business enterprise, whether for profit or not, to be conducted in any way the business or property owner sees fit so long as this does not violating another person’s rights. No one has the right to not be discriminated against and you cannot legislate morality. However, a property owner does and ought to have the right to use and dispose of his property, or business, as he sees fit, whether or not it is a public accommodation.
I support the Tiger Mountain Thirst Parlour Bele Chere Declaration of Discrimination: http://snipr.com/24g5u38. This policy may be unfair to non-locals but it is not the place of government to force someone to be fair. This would be a matter for private individuals to sort out without resorting to force.
The complicating factor in this matter is government interference in the form of tax exemptions, subsidies and regulation. This is what constitutes an unfree market and it is the source of conflict in this case.
The only thing immoral in these cases is the discrimination by the government against business and property owners in the exercise of their rights. This constitutes the infringement of the rights of some for the benefit of others which abrogates the very principle of rights.
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Funny thing, some so called “private businesses” won’t play fair unless made to, by the government.
RIGHT ON Jess!
Here we go again. It would be hard to identify anyone less qualified to be giving advice on which government agencies should or should not be abolished nor any other governance ‘advice’ than Mr. Peck, based upon information he has disclosed publicly about himself via his Quixotic joke of a run for City Council, the blatant revision to the Constitution, the Montford Avenue boarding house controversy and the “I’m among the poor that champion payday lenders” comment.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and to express those opinions. Personally, I find his fuzzy-thinking gobblygook entertaining, but hardly worthy of any serious consideration.
I have an idea…why don’t all who posted something on this topic within the past day or two find one we really, really are impressed with and re-post it?
Oh, someone already thought of that? Never mind.
Be careful where you cast aspersions. The ABCCM is a widely beloved charity in our area with nearly 3500 volunteers from all walks in our community. True many of these are from nearly 300 churches. In an age where religion is maligned more and more for its hippocricy, the ABCCM is an example of people in community working together for the benefit of those in need regardless of ANY differences. Remember the sponsoring source for this complaint. The Southern Poverty Law Center has an abominable record for raising its financial support and bogeymen. They historically are involved in cases that benefit their bottom line…… It would be a shame if the ability of the ABCCM to support the needy in WNC were hindered by complying with a federal investigation that ended up being without merit. An SPLC complaint has no merit until the Dept of Labor determines the basic facts of the case. And an accusation does not guarantee guilt but it decides to move on to a more indepth investigation. Lets not be too eager lend our support to a shady “civil rights” group while throwing one of our best local charities under the bus.
@ H. Bowman…your comment just raised my curiosity level a hundred fold. Cogburn & Brazil are well respected in this community also.
I lived in the Steadfast House, which is where ABCCM houses female vets. The claims in this article were true then and they are still true today. Female veterans are not treated as veterans who served their country by ABCCM. I was not given any job training. I was not allowed to be out after 6 pm (there were no dinners with my family). I was given one hot meal a day (dinner). The majority of time, I was given low quality food from food banks that were generally expired well before they were donated. Male veterans receive job training, are allowed out until midnight, are allowed weekend and five day passes to see their families whenever they want to take them (which female vets are never allowed), and are fed 3 cooked meals every day. After discussing this with the female vets that are currently at Steadfast House, I will be initiating an investigation by a VA organization based on the sexual discrimination that female veterans are still incurring. Instead of going by what you believe is happening because ABCCM treats the male veterans so well, please take a moment to ask the female vets what is really going on. Their greatest fear is that after they leave Steadfast House they will be homeless again, and with no job training, they’re probably right.
It’s true and not the first time my dear daughter wad shafted by a crooked system she is currently missing and disappeared the day thAt lawsuit was filed. Backlash, which I too have experienced have kept both of living fearful of the crooked. Patriarchs who run this town in a misogynistic manner. Love you Emily and always will.