City to pay $250,000
in discrimination suit
The city has agreed to pay a female Honolulu Liquor Commission investigator $250,000 to settle federal and state claims that she was harassed and retaliated against on the basis of her gender and sexual orientation.
Carla Chu filed suit in U.S. District Court in 2002 against the city, the Honolulu Liquor Commission and fellow investigators claiming she was harassed for almost a 10-year period and that managers who had a duty to correct harassment in the workplace failed to act, said attorney Susan Hippensteele, of the Hawaii Women's Law Center, one of three attorneys who represented Chu.
Chu also alleged she was passed over for promotions that she was best qualified for but did not get.
The city and Liquor Commission admit no fault in this settlement. City attorneys did not return calls for comment.
Under the settlement approved by the City Council on March 24, all Liquor Commission employees will be required to undergo mandatory training on discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation and retaliation. A 24-hour hot line will also be established to enable employees to report violations anonymously.
Despite the settlement, Chu is resigning from the commission effective April 15 because she cannot continue working in that environment, said her attorney April Wilson-South, also of the Hawaii Women's Law Center.
"They haven't cleaned it up enough, and we hope that corrective action and the settlement agreement will do that," she said.
The case is also important to women and lesbians in general because "it's one of those cases that keep pushing facts that women and people who are not heterosexual should not be subjected to discrimination," Wilson-South said. "You can pass laws, but until someone actually comes forward, nothing really happens."
Getting the commission to agree to enact changes is as much as one person can do, Wilson-South said. "But really, the changes will have to start from the top down, and the settlement doesn't address those issues."
Wallace Weatherwax, Liquor Commission administrator, was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
Had the case gone to trial, Wilson-South said they would have produced evidence that other liquor investigators stated that Chu should not be in the job because she was a woman.
"They didn't like working with women. They'd rather work with men," Wilson-South said, noting that some of the investigators are former police officers.
Chu was the first and only female liquor investigator when she joined the commission in 1992. "Now they won't have one," Wilson-South said. "They said they didn't know how to talk to one."
As an investigator, Chu was required to go to bars to check for liquor violations but was not being backed up by the other male investigators, Wilson-South said. "She was completely isolated and harassed for nine years by co-workers, and finally she had to leave."
By leaving the commission, Chu hopes to get on with her life and work somewhere else, Wilson-South said.
At least two of the defendants in Chu's suit were named in a federal indictment against Liquor Commission investigators and supervisors accused of accepting bribes from liquor establishments in return for overlooking liquor violations.
All but three commission employees indicted in that case have pleaded guilty. The rest are expected to go to trial in U.S. District Court on April 22.