Discrimination

A 61-year-old white woman, who says she was wrongfully fired from the Baltimore prosecutors' office after 25 years on the job, has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit alleging age, race and gender discrimination in the 2010 termination. Antoinette E. Swiec, of Baltimore, is seeking $400,000 in compensation from the Baltimore state's attorney's office on each of two counts, claiming she was fired because the predominantly young, African American division she worked for wanted her out. The lawsuit was filed in  U.S. District Court Monday, and was to be served on Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein, though the firing occurred under his predecessor, Patricia C. Jessamy.

A former Baltimore City government employee says she was fired as a result of race, age and gender discrimination. Melissa Fulton, 63, lost her job in the Mayor's Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Development in February when Stephanie Rawlings-Blake became mayor, after Sheila Dixon's resignation as part of a plea deal in her criminal case. Fulton, who says she was the only white employee in a four-person office, contends that she was fired despite having a satisfactory record and no disciplinary issues, while a younger black male counterpart was retained even though he had been disciplined, according to a complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I am the Realtor that was the agent for the seller of the land that was sold to the Chin Baptist Church. Shortly after this became public knowledge I was approached by a neighbor. He told me this had to be stopped because if you let one Korean into the neighborhood than other Koreans will want to move into the neighborhood. By the way they are not Koreans. Later my son came home and told me that an adult had told him that I was the person who let the gooks into the neighborhood. I don't know if this person was serious or not. The first public hearing was on an Ash Wednesday.

Transgender people would be protected from discrimination in Baltimore County under a measure approved by the County Council Tuesday, making the county the fourth local government in Maryland to adopt such protections. Council members did not add a heavily debated amendment proposed last week that would have specifically exempted bathrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms. Instead, the council left the bathroom issue open to interpretation in the legislation, amending the measure so that the protections do not apply to "distinctly private or personal" facilities.

A home health care service operated by Johns Hopkins failed to accommodate an employee with breast cancer and later fired her, the U.S. agency that enforces job discrimination laws charged in a suit announced Friday. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Hopkins unfairly fired Ray Ellen Fisher, a registered nurse, who had been a case manager at Johns Hopkins Home Care Group Inc. since 2003. According to the complaint, Fisher was diagnosed in 2009 and began treatments.

The article by Zainab Choudry and Saqib Ali on Israel's supposed discrimination against Arab-American and Muslim citizens is missing a big part of the story in the Arab and Muslim world ("Don't let Israel discriminate," April 30). Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had to personally intervene to allow Jewish reporters on his plane to enter Saudi Arabia, since Jews weren't allowed. Christians in Arab lands are harassed and persecuted on a regular basis. Meanwhile, Muslim women are considered property upon marriage, and the Arab Spring in Egypt has replaced one dictator with another.

About 1,000 Baltimore-area residents are expected to receive thousands of dollars each under a landmark $175 million settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Wells Fargo over accusations of discriminatory lending practices. Under the terms of the deal announced Thursday, Wells Fargo also will provide $7.5 million to the city of Baltimore, which federal officials credited with first raising issues of discrimination related to bank's subprime mortgages. The city alleged Wells Fargo steered minorities into subprime loans, gave them less favorable rates than white borrowers and foreclosed on hundreds of Baltimore homes, creating blight and higher public safety costs.

A year ago, when six black Secret Service agents accused the Denny's restaurant in Annapolis of discrimination, reaction to the complaint split into two categories.There were those who believed that the agents experienced racial bias; after all, they were still waiting to be served an hour after arriving at the restaurant while their white colleagues, who had come with them, were finishing their breakfasts. There were also many who said they were sick and tired of hearing screams of "discrimination."

The first rule of any civilized society, says Linda Ellerbee, should be to "let the people be different." Yet in the last of three news special for young people on cable's Nickelodeon network tonight, she demonstrates how societies collectively conspire against difference."