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A federal jury has ruled that Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. discriminated against a white former maintenance manager at its old Landover coffee-roasting plant because of his race and awarded him $24,200 in expenses, with the recommendation that he be paid another $61,000 in back pay. In his reverse discrimination suit, John Sullivan said he was hired in 1999, only to be demoted and replaced by a black subordinate. He claimed an African American supervisor fired him in November 2002 because he is white.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Franklin Square Hospital announced an agreement yesterday under which the hospital will pay $325,000 to African-Americans who were denied nursing and file clerk jobs from 1993 to 1997.Judy Navarro, an investigator in the Baltimore office of the EEOC, said this was the largest such agreement reached by the office in several years. As part of the agreement, she said, Franklin Square will not only compensate people denied jobs but will be "monitoring its applicant flow with the goal of expanding on diversity."

A Baltimore man who was passed over for a job as a Howard County police officer has filed a class action lawsuit against the county for allegedly discriminating against white males in its hiring practices.The suit notes a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission finding that there is "reasonable cause to believe that [Howard County] has engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination against white males as a class with respect to making selection decisions for police officer positions."

MOST investigations by the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involve allegations of bias by private employers. That's why its probe of the Baltimore Police Department's employment practices is unusual. The verdict: African-American officers are treated differently from whites in disciplinary cases and face retaliation if they complain.Swift action is needed to make sure that such inequities do not persist. The EEOC's finding that the Police Department has "a centralized practice" of disciplining African-American officers more harshly than whites is nothing short of scandalous, if such a practice indeed exists.

An article in yesterday's Marlyand section gave an incorrect first name for Walter Shook, Baltimore Community Relations supervisor of investigations.The Sun regrets the error.Baltimore police strongly denied yesterday retaliating against black officers who complained of racism, and they asked that a federal agency turn over evidence that proves entrenched bias in the department.The chief legal counsel for the police, Gary May, sent a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week asking for names of witnesses and documents used to conclude that the department violated federal civil rights laws.

MIAMI -- Big government is making a new attempt to impose itself as Big Brother or, in the case of a local restaurant, Big Sister.The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was informed that Joe's Stone Crab restaurant, an 84-year-old family-owned Miami institution with 250 employees, had not hired any female ''waitpersons'' in four years.Without a formal complaint by any individual alleging discrimination, the EEOC used Census data to persuade U.S. District Judge Court Daniel Hurley that a state of discrimination against women exists at Joe's.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asked yesterday to be allowed to intervene in a discrimination suit settled last week by Texaco Inc., raising the possibility that .. the record agreement may have to be renegotiated.In a federal court motion, the EEOC said it did not want to try the case but wanted to be involved in the negotiations of the settlement, which still must be approved by a federal judge."As representative of the public interest, EEOC is concerned that HTC the injunctive relief fashioned as part of the settlement will be appropriate to eradicate the discrimination that is the subject of the pending litigation," the agency wrote in its motion filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y.The agency said its concern "relates solely to the nonmonetary aspect of the proposed settlement, and to ensuring that the violations cease and an effective settlement is put into place to prevent any repetition of the violations."

|TC BOSTON -- Of course not every worker at the giant Mitsubishi plant knew about the sexual harassment. For openers, 610 of the workers are robots. We may assume their innocence.The rest of the folks seem to have had more than an inkling of the norm in Normal, Illinois. On April 9 when the EEOC hit the Mitsubishi fan with the largest sexual-harassment suit in the nation, many workers defended their company by saying things like this:''It wasn't that bad.''''They make us all look like perverts.

I called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission yesterday but, of course, there was no one there. So we'll have to wait until all nonessential personnel return to work to find out whether the EEOC thinks Hooters should be renamed, "Guys In Orange Shorts."Extreme? I dunno. Not when you consider how the EEOC wants Hooters to settle a discrimination-in-hiring complaint. (About $22 million in settlement, if need be.)Against whom does the Atlanta-based restaurant chain allegedly discriminate?

The other day, a Senate committee was talking about universal health care and the need to assure that no one is discriminated against for reasons of age, sex, or any other reason. It is a fine concept but it made my blood run cold.That's because these decisions seem to wind up being made by federal bureaucrats. And they have a strange way of dispensing what they consider to be justice.An example is a case I wrote about recently, that of a restaurant operator named Hans Morsbach, who runs several restaurants in Chicago's Hyde Park area.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against Greater Baltimore Medical Center, alleging that it violated federal law by firing a clerk who had a genetic disorder and stroke-related impairments. According to the complaint, filed in federal court, Michael E. Turner was fired in June 2006. Turner has neurofibromatosis, but was physically able to perform his duties, said Maria Salacuse, senior trial attorney for the commission. "According to his personal physician, he could have returned without restrictions in May 2006," she said.

An Anne Arundel County elementary school teacher was wrongfully terminated from his job because he is HIV-positive, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges in its suit that Chesapeake Academy, a private school in Arnold, discriminated against the teacher because of his disability by not renewing his contract, a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaint was filed Monday in Baltimore. Chauncey Stevenson, a second-grade and after-school music teacher, had been employed since 2003 and received good evaluations from his supervisors, parents and students during his tenure, according to EEOC lawyers.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will pay $250,000 to a pharmacy technician who suffered a disability resulting from a gunshot wound and was subsequently fired from one of its Harford County stores, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced yesterday. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart failed to accommodate technician Glenda Darlene Allen and then unlawfully fired her from the Abingdon store because of her disability, the EEOC said. Allen, who had worked as a Wal-Mart pharmacy technician at another store in Aberdeen since July 1993, was shot during a robbery at another job in 1994.

A federal jury has ruled that Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. discriminated against a white former maintenance manager at its old Landover coffee-roasting plant because of his race and awarded him $24,200 in expenses, with the recommendation that he be paid another $61,000 in back pay. In his reverse discrimination suit, John Sullivan said he was hired in 1999, only to be demoted and replaced by a black subordinate. He claimed an African American supervisor fired him in November 2002 because he is white.

The Seafarers International Union and an affiliated school have agreed to pay $625,000 to settle an age discrimination suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC announced yesterday. Under the terms of the settlement, the Paul Hall Center and the union agreed to pay the money to 30 to 40 people who allegedly were barred from an apprenticeship program because of their age, the EEOC said. The EEOC alleged in the lawsuit that the Paul Hall Center and the union would not let candidates age 40 or older into the program.

Bob Ward Cos., an Edgewood-based homebuilder, is facing a racial discrimination lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a former employee who was fired from the company last year. The EEOC alleges in a news release issued yesterday that the man, the only black construction superintendent with the company at the time, was subjected to different terms and conditions of employment, faced racially derogatory language and jokes from subcontractors, and was fired because of his race.

A former maintenance manager at a Landover coffee roasting plant has filed a reverse-discrimination lawsuit in federal court against the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., which operates the A&P grocery chain and ran the coffee plant before selling it two years ago. John Sullivan, who is white, alleges he was denied a pay raise and demoted because of his race. He says A&P fired him in retaliation for taking his complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The federal agency investigated the matter and filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

FEWER THAN two-thirds of federal agencies are complying with new diversity guidelines that require them to file annual reports on barriers to minority hiring and promotions, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Thursday. EEOC spokesman David B. Grinberg said about 60 percent of federal agencies have filed the first report, which was due in January. He declined to provide a list of the agencies that failed to do so. Grinberg said the EEOC plans to publish the list in its annual report, scheduled for release by the end of May. "These are new rules, and it may take longer for some agencies to meet our deadlines," he said.

Fewer than two-thirds of federal agencies are complying with new diversity guidelines that require them to file annual reports on barriers to minority hiring and promotions, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Thursday. EEOC spokesman David B. Grinberg said about 60 percent of federal agencies have filed the first report, which was due in January. He declined to provide a list of the agencies that failed to do so. Grinberg said the EEOC plans to publish the list in its annual report, scheduled for release by the end of May. "These are new rules, and it may take longer for some agencies to meet our deadlines," he said.

NEW YORK - The judge presiding over a bias suit accusing Morgan Stanley of discriminating against its female employees yesterday delayed the start of trial for "a few days." Jury selection had been scheduled to begin yesterday in New York in the first government suit to accuse a Wall Street bank of gender bias. Shortly after 8 a.m., U.S. District Judge Richard Berman posted a note on his courtroom door saying he'd postponed the case "a few days" to resolve outstanding legal issues. Berman said the parties asked for the delay.