THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412040049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
Carol S. O'Dell, a 47-year old mathematics professor, will reopen a long-running dispute with Elizabeth City State University on Monday when she files a formal appeal for reinstatement to her old job.
O'Dell is now head of the mathematics department at Chowan College in Murfreesboro, a position she took after ECSU administrators told her on Nov. 9, 1993, that her $37,000 a year contract as an associate professor would not be renewed this year.
O'Dell has submitted to ECSU officials an inch-thick folder of legal documents to support her plea for reinstatement, claiming that the contract decision came after almost a year of bickering between O'Dell, who is white, and faculty administrators at the predominantly black university.
The appeal contains pages of exhibits that O'Dell identifies as her own memorandums to ECSU supervisors in which she pleads for computer facilities for her math classes. Other documents signed by senior faculty members and ECSU administrators reflect some of O'Dell's demands for classroom facilities that equaled those of other professors of similar rank.
In one document, O'Dell identifies her ``office'' as a small space by a soft-drink machine.
The controversy spread off campus and into national newspapers when O'Dell publicly accused ECSU Chancellor Jimmy R. Jenkins of making ``racist'' comments at an Aug. 16, 1993, faculty meeting.
``During that speech, Mr. Jenkins made remarks which Ms. O'Dell considered at the time, and continues to consider, to be blatantly racist and discriminatory toward white faculty,'' O'Dell said in one of the legal papers she has prepared for Monday's ECSU trustee hearing on her reinstatement appeal.
``The like-it-or-leave-it sentiments expressed in Chancellor Jenkins remarks do not appear to be based on anything other than a consideration of my race and fail to take into account professional issues which give rise to my criticisms,'' O'Dell wrote after making her racist charge against Jenkins.
Jenkins subsequently apologized for his remarks, but said that O'Dell had misunderstood and misinterpreted then.
Three ECSU trustees will sit as a committee for a preliminary hearing of O'Dell's reinstatement arguments in a closed meeting at 2 p.m. Monday in the G.R. Little Library conference room. They are William T. Davis and John Morrison, both Elizabeth City attorneys, and Stanley Green Jr., a Raleigh banker.
When Carol Kerr, another white female ECSU professor, was fired in a separate, racially tinted faculty controversy last year, O'Dell went to bat for her and helped Kerr prepare a legal defense that ultimately won Kerr's reinstatement.
The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina system directed Jenkins to return Kerr to her job as as a child education instructor with full back pay.
ECSU is one of five major African American institutions in the 16-campus UNC system.
After her reinstatement, Kerr subsequently left ECSU, claiming she was uncomfortable with the treatment she received from faculty members and ECSU administrators.
In her own dispute with Jenkins, O'Dell said his ``racist'' remarks at the 1993 faculty meeting included a suggestion to white faculty members that they would get help finding other teaching jobs if they didn't like the black administration at ECSU. She also said that a senior professor had told a sexist joke at another conference.
O'Dell said Friday that even though she now has a prestigious position as a department head at Chowan College, she intended to fight for reinstatement at ECSU as a ``matter of principle.''
``I'm from the West Virginia hills and I never give up,'' she said.
In her appeal for reinstatement, O'Dell added a list of further considerations that she feels will be necessary to make amends. They include public apologies from Jenkins and certain other ECSU faculty members and administrators; a considerable sum of adjusted back pay, adequate computer equipment, and $1.25 million in damages to be paid over five years ending in 1999.
She also asks that sanctions be applied to some of Jenkins' subordinates that would reduce their rank and influence and has called upon the state bar association to look into the conduct of two lawyers who represented ECSU or Jenkins in the campus controversies.
Jenkins declined comment on O'Dell's contentions. So did other ECSU teachers or administrators. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
EXCERPTS FROM THE BRIEF
In a supplement to her appeal for reinstatement at ECSU, Carol
O'Dell asks that several specific steps be taken by Chancellor Jimmy
R. Jenkins and ECSU to resolve her grievances. They include:
``Prof. O'Dell requests that the board of trustees reinstate her
as associate professor of mathematics, effective in the Fall of
1995.'' In a preface to her demands, she states: ``There is
overwhelming evidence of disparate treatment based on race and
gender and there is incontrovertible evidence of a lynch-mob
approach to the removal of Prof. O'Dell from the campus community of
ECSU.''
``Prof. O'Dell requests punitive damages in the amount of $1.25
million, to be paid in equal installments over a period of five
years, beginning July 1, 1995, and ending July 1, 1999.'' The
damages would compensate for grievances she says she suffered during
her employment at ECSU.
``Prof. O'Dell (requests that she) be provided with office space,
computer equipment and accoutrements . . . and that she be given
keys for access to the building and computer lab areas after hours
and weekends in order that she may reasonably pursue scholarly
activity.''
``Prof. O'Dell requests that the Trustees instruct the Chancellor
to take personal responsibility for insuring that she will be
guaranteed raises of at least the average raise paid to black
faculty of equivalent rank . . . and that she be free from
harassment.
``Prof. O'Dell requests that the Board of Trustees instruct the
Chancellor to be personally responsibile for guaranteeing her
reimbursement for all costs associated with pursuing this
grievance.''
``Prof. O'Dell requests reimbursement for the computer system
which she was forced to purchase as a result of having been denied
computer support during 1992-1993 academic year.''
``Prof. O'Dell requests public apologies from Sohindar Sachdev,
Helen Caldwell, George Coleman, and Jimmy Jenkins (all named in her
appeal as ECSU administrators or faculty members) with those
apologies published in (there followed a list of daily newspapers or
other professional periodicals).
by CNB