Michigan center accused of honoring patients’ racist demands
ZEELAND, Mich. (AP) — A health care center in western Michigan is accused of agreeing to requests by patients for white-only caregivers.
Six black certified nursing assistants filed a lawsuit April 11 against Providence Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, where they all work or formerly worked. The Zeeland facility offers memory care, rehabilitation, retirement and assisted living to mostly senior patients.
The CNAs are accusing the center of race discrimination, race harassment and retaliation. They’re seeking compensation for mental anguish, emotional distress and damage to their professional reputation.
“It’s embarrassing and humiliating and it shouldn’t be tolerated,” said Julie Gafkay, an attorney for the women.
The CNAs listed in the lawsuit are Kimberly French, Gloria Reid, Tiesha Branch, Marquita Mills, Providence Ngoh and Valencia Washington.
Providence Life Services spokeswoman Sheila King declined to comment on the allegations due to the litigation but said Providence doesn’t change staff assignments based on race. The center falls under a nonprofit that also has locations in Illinois and Indiana.
The lawsuit alleges some residents said they didn’t want black caregivers, and the facility would grant the requests and put them in the patient’s care plan.
“When (the CNAs) were assigned to care for said patients, they would be switched with a Caucasian employee, they would be told not to care for the patient,” Gafkay said. “If they cared for the patients, they were called racist names by the patients who believed such requests were permissible because (Providence Healthcare’s) failure to properly address.”
Working conditions worsened for the caregivers after making a formal complaint in January against the administrator, according to the lawsuit.
ABA releases employment data for graduating law class
Employment data for the graduating law class of 2017 as reported by American Bar Association-approved law schools to the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is now publicly available.
The aggregate national data on law graduate employment outcome for the class of 2017 and individual schools’ post-graduate employment figures can be found online. An online table also provides select national side-by-side comparisons between the classes of 2017 and 2016.
The aggregated school data shows that 75.3 percent of the 2017 graduates of the 204 law schools approved by the ABA to offer the J.D. degree were employed in full-time long-term Bar Passage Required or J.D. Advantage jobs roughly 10 months after graduation.
That compares to 72.6 percent of the graduates reporting similar full-time long-term jobs last year. The higher percentage of students so employed, however, results from an approximately 6 percent decrease in the size of the graduating class.
The actual number of full-time long-term Bar Passage Required or J.D. Advantage jobs decreased by 630, or -2.34 percent year over year, going from 26,923 in 2016 to 26,293 in 2017.
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