Well today won't help matters, as the Washington Post found out about a confidential NAACP document detailing the accusations of a former female employee, Michelle Speaks, who says he showed favortism toward women in the organization whom he had "close personal relationships" with.
According to the Post, this was a very sensitive document; once the members of the executive committee had time to read it at a meeting, the copies were taken back up before they left. However, the Post was able to get a hold of some memos written by Marcia Goodman, a lawyer the NAACP hired to analyze Speaks's claims. Speaks requested $140,000 - two years' salary - or threatened to file a complaint to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission and possibly a civil lawsuit.
The NAACP being reported to the EEOC. How ironic.
The Post also obtained a separate memo detailing some of Mfume's transgressions:
So you have two women in the nation's oldest civil rights organization catfighting over the President. That sounds like a story from the White House in the 90's. I would say the early sixties too, but JFK kept his women in check.In 1999, staff lawyers conducted an inquiry after two women got into a loud verbal altercation, allegedly over his attentions. One woman was disciplined; the other was promoted several months later, according to one document.
The altercation is described in a May 24, 1999, internal memo that lawyers for the NAACP wrote to Bond. "There appeared to be a widespread belief in the organization that President Mfume had displayed preferential treatment" to one of the women "based on a possible dating relationship," the memo says.
The lawyers then questioned whether Mfume "interfered with this inquiry by exerting improper influence on two key witnesses." Also, according to the memo, Mfume refused to answer questions in the inquiry.
But this is the part that takes the cake:
I'll tell you what playa (© J. Anthony Brown), women will do it to you EVERY TIME.Mfume acknowledged yesterday that he dated one of the women in that altercation, a female NAACP employee, for "three months" and later adopted her 4-year-old son. The boy is now 15, he said. The woman now works for the Maryland Department of Transportation.
"It was for a very brief moment," he said of the relationship. "And I fell in love with this kid who was fatherless and was very withdrawn. He's [become] an unbelievably impressive young man."
Is the foster child the same child that, according to the Post, Mfume claimed to have wanted to spend more time with when he resigned? Christopher, the son he said he wanted to spend more time with, and the foster child are both 15.
Something's gone terribly wrong when a public official's life sounds like a soap opera.
Here's probably the most damning evidence that Speaks has:
If Speaks could adequately show a considerable gap between women rumored to have dated Mfume and ones who didn't, the NAACP is toast. Goodman and the other lawyers who've analyzed the case can believe what they want, but the case is won and lost in court. That's really all that matters. Based on the information given, I'd be surprised if Bond and the executive committee hasn't settled with Speaks already.To bolster her analysis, Goodman details salary information for several women who worked at the NAACP's national headquarters in Baltimore and states that those rumored to have close relationships with Mfume, or with his son, have fared better than those who did not.
The fault lies directly at Mfume's feet, no matter whether he truly was guilty of favortism or not. The information given shows a pattern of sexual dalliances with employees, which could used against you later on. If it was only one employee, it would be different, but ten? Who's to say he won't do the same thing if the people of Maryland lose their minds and elect him Senator?
In an interview with the Post yesterday, Mfume said he doesn't engage in "inappropriate behavior". I would definitely hate to see what he considers inappropriate. No workplace I know of tolerates this kind of thing (well, actually the WWE does, but I don't think that's the standard Mfume or the NAACP wants to emulate).
I hope to have more on this later.
