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My name is Tommy Allen Thompson; I was born on February 2, 1968 with extensive physical deformities. I do not have a left arm, my right arm is short with only two fingers and my right leg is two inches shorter than my left. This disability has never hindered me from doing the things that normal people do. However, my recent adult life has left me struggling with continuous discrimination at the work place because of my so-called disability. Here's a little background of my life. I grew up like most kids, learning to ride a bicycle and playing sports. I was very active in school and received many awards and honors, like in 1984-1985 I was selected as one of "Who's Who Among American High School Students", I have received perfect attendance awards and have made honor roll many times. In high school I was very active in clubs such as FFA and was a member of the VICA Electronics Club. In the VICA Electronics Club I was a member of the Display Team that won first place in local conference competition and went on to compete in Raleigh, North Carolina at the State level. I even learned to drive a car when I was 15 years old. While attending high school I also took and completed an art course from Art Instruction Schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota by mail. After graduating high school I went to college and got a degree in Electronics Engineering Technology and received the "Outstanding Student Award" in the Technical Department and was given a gold cord indicating an over-all academic average of 3.5 or above. In 1988 after graduating college, I began working at Stanly Community College as a lab assistant for the Electronics Engineering Technology (EET) program. I replaced Jeff Swaringen, who worked for Gary Cattell (Electronic Engineering Technology Program Head). I was even put on the front page of our local newspaper with a small story about my disability and me. The story explained how I had turned my disabilities into "definite abilities". The story went on to say how I "pushed the program forward" and the school hired me because of my good record in the EET classes. A couple years later I began teaching part-time in the Electronics Engineering Technology curriculum. As time went by, my teaching load began increasing. Many times my hours became as much as that of a full-time instructor, but I was still considered part-time. Being a part-time employee meant that I had no benefits. I inquired many times about eligibility for employee benefits because this job was my primary source of income since no one else would hire me. Bud Tucker of Tucker Insurance Agency of Albemarle Inc. once told my Mother while she went to pay the insurance premiums that if I worked a certain number of hours per week I could purchase Insurance through Stanly Community College saving me lots of money. The school was purchasing insurance from Tucker Insurance Agency of Albemarle Inc. at that time. The school told me because I was not full-time that I could not get insurance or any other benefits through Stanly Community College. However, for several quarters my hours were as much or more than that of a full-time instructor. They had contracted me on a class-by-class basis so that I would not be considered a full-time employee. Their justification for not offering me a full-time position was that I have only an associates degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. The unfortunate thing is that for many years I have taught on a part-time basis believing what I was told. Dr. Michael Taylor (vice president at the time) approached me not long after I asked the school about benefits. He asked me to meet with him in his office to discuss my job. I thought I was finally going to be given a chance to work full-time and start receiving benefits. Instead he told me he was going to have to reduce my lab assistant hours back to five hours per week because the school couldn't afford me with the number of hours I was currently working. He wanted me to work one hour per day, five days per week. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; I was hardly making enough money to pay my medical, life, and automobile insurance premiums as it was. Even though I am disabled I am not on disability, so reducing my hours made me furious. I told him that I couldn't afford to drive to school for just one hour a day making only $5.50 an hour. After telling Tom Chrane (Computer Engineering Technology Program Head) what just took place in that meeting, he suggested that I write a letter of resignation to go along with my verbal resignation, so I did. After that I tried very hard to find work somewhere else and had Larry Dennis from the Vocational Rehabilitation to help me look for jobs. Even with the help of Larry Dennis I was turned down one job after another. So when the school told me they needed me to teach some classes for them I realized I had no choice, but again it was only part-time. Stanly Community College was aware that this was my only job and unlike most part-time instructors, except those that have a spouse to provide additional income, they didn't have to work around hours from another job. I had worked at Stanly Community College and seen many others hired in the Electronic department full-time while the school continued to use me part-time. I would teach for the Electronic, Computer, and Biomedical Programs and a few other departments at the school. I would also teach day and night classes, since I had no other job that conflicted my schedule. I even taught secretary students Word Processing; I was a very versatile instructor but never given the credit for it. On Tuesday, September 2, 1997, I began teaching at Union Technical Education Center in Monroe, North Carolina, a division of Anson and Stanly Community Colleges. I was teaching electronic and computer classes at Union Technical Education Center for Stanly Community College. I had moved up from part-time to temporary full-time, which meant I was receiving a larger salary but with no benefits. This was my first semester teaching at UTEC, so I was not sure what to expect. After two weeks at UTEC, I realized why no one would teach the electronics program, because it was very minimally funded by Stanly Community College, and was not supplying the program with the proper equipment that it needed. Equipments that they did allot to UTEC were the old equipments that Stanly Community College had been using for many years and had past its life expectancy. After the fall semester ended, so did my temporary full-time contract. Stanly Community College asked me to teach the next semester, but I informed them I would not because of the poor conditions and absence of the proper lab equipments. They made a verbal deal with me, in front of all my second year students, that if I would teach the next semester they would supply UTEC with the equipment that it needed. The students in my class at the time were Jeffrey W. Hamerick, James R. Mullis, Stuart T. Rochon, Eric I. Hall, Perry Stegall, and Michael L. Doster (Michael died a few months after graduation with Leukemia). After I signed another contract to teach again at UTEC, Stanly Community College did not keep its promise. The equipment they supplied was insufficient and did not even arrive at UTEC until the semester was almost over. I even had to purchase several electronic devices myself so that I could conduct some of the required labs. I realized Stanly Community College had dishonored its promise to me and I refused to sign any more contracts to teach at UTEC. UTEC was not the school that had dishonored its promise to me. Remember at the time I taught for UTEC it was being funded by Anson and Stanly Community Colleges. I was teaching in the one of the divisions that was funded by Stanly Community College. Leaving UTEC was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The faculty and staff of UTEC were some of the finest people you could ever meet. Before leaving them, UTEC awarded me with a Certificate of Appreciation that said: "Union Technical Education Center presents this Certificate of Appreciation to Tommy Thompson In Honor and Recognition of Outstanding Special Contributions to the Purpose, Objectives, and Operation of the Electronics Engineering Technology Program". Again, I began my search for a full-time job. I worked with Larry Dennis, my Rehabilitation Counselor, and Eric Cook from the Employment Security Commission on finding a job. These two guys were very helpful. I met with Eric on a weekly basis and he would usually have five or six places for me to apply to. This went on for several months, I got many interviews but that was as far as I would get. Larry Dennis suggested that I sign up and take a class on job seeking and job retention skills. Even though I had been trained these skills in college I figured it would help if I took this class. On December 29th, 1998, I satisfactorily completed the requirements on the job seeking and job retention skills workshop. Faye Williams, the instructor of the class even set up an interview for me at a computer store in Monroe, North Carolina. Faye even attended the interview with me. The interview went very well but I didn't get the job. Larry Dennis, Eric Cook, and Faye Williams then noticed how my qualifications were being overlooked because of my disability. After intensive searching and over a year and a half of company after company turning me down, I began to feel very distressed. In early May of 1999, I received a telephone call from Jim Hillier, Chairman of the Technology Division at Stanly Community College. He wanted to know if I found a job yet. I told him I was waiting to hear from Corning in Midland, North Carolina because I had past all the requirements they were looking for. He told me I would probably never hear from them because they were laying-off employees. He then went on to say that Bob Harrison the program head for the electronics engineering program had accepted a position at another community college. Stanly Community College then needed someone to teach a couple of classes during the summer semester. At first, I was very hesitant to even consider teaching for Stanly Community College after what has happened to me in the past and how Stanly Community College treated me while I was at Union Technical Education Center. However, the college did say that they would be recruiting someone to fill his position in the fall semester, and that I had an opportunity to take his role. I agreed to teach part-time again for Stanly Community College just for the summer semester. Once Stanly Community College saw that I was interested in the full-time job, they proceeded to lower the job title to "Electronics Teaching Assistant" and told me that they would employ me for $18,000 a year. The description listed for this job was identical to that of a full-time instructor, whose starting salary is substantially more than the offer that I was presented. When I told them I would not teach for $18,000 a year, they told me that they had made a mistake and offered me $19,000 a year instead. "The Fair Pay Act, introduced into the U.S. Congress in 1999, seeks to eliminate wage discrimination based upon sex, race, or national origin. This important legislation would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to require employers to provide equal pay for "work of equivalent value." Work of equivalent value is defined as "work that may be dissimilar, but whose requirements are equivalent, when viewed as a composite of skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions." The Fair Pay Act is essential in the continuing fight for workplace equity." Recently, I discovered that Stanly Community College has several full-time instructors that have less than a Bachelor's degree. I was told that my Associate degree was what kept me from becoming a full-time employee and obtaining benefits. I now see that I had been mislead or coerced into believing their misrepresentation, seeing that Stanly Community College has other full-time employees with an associate degree. I've learned that Tom Chrane who was the Computer Engineering Technology Program Head only had an associate degree like I have. I also discovered that new faculty hiring or starting salaries were much higher than what Stanly Community College was prepared to offer me. Only after presenting them with the information that I had gathered were they willing to negotiate the starting salary. I realized that Stanly Community College had been untruthful to me for many years and they have been taking advantage of me. The school had been violating its Affirmative Action (1.074) section stated on page 5 of the Faculty and Staff Handbook. It says: "In recognition of its responsibility for the development of equal opportunity, the College insures that it will take affirmative action to assure that employment procedures and personnel actions taken during employment will be administered in a manner that will not exclude any person from equal employment opportunities due to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or handicap." Like I said earlier, I had seen others hired full-time for the electronic program and the school continued to use me part-time denying me full-time opportunities and benefits. I applied for the position that Jim Hillier finally offered me only because I could not find employment anywhere else (and he knew that) and I needed a job. I was advised in a meeting with Jim Hillier before they hired me for the position that the Electronics Engineering Program may not exist after my first year. Even though they were finally offering me full-time employment, their intentions were to do away with the electronic program due to small number of students. The school only needed my teaching skills to finish out a dying program and only offer me a teaching assistants salary. While signing my contract, three weeks after I began teaching, I discovered that I was placed on a one semester probationary period because I was considered a new employee. Their justification for this was they put all part-time employees on a one-semester probation period. My contract started August 5, 1999 and expired December 31, 1999. I had been temporary full-time for nine months not part-time, which is considered one school year, working at UTEC for Stanly Community College. I had already proved to Stanly Community College that I was capable of handling a full-time workload. Also the 11 years that I worked for Stanly Community College starting as Lab Assistant and then eventually an Electronic and Computer Instructor meant nothing to the school. If the school would have looked at my past student evaluation records they would have noticed the students rated me as an excellent, hard-working instructor. After Stanly Community College hired me full-time and after I had started teaching my classes, I was approached and told that I would be teaching a motor class for continuing education students. I already had a full-time workload this semester and they wanted to add an additional load on me. They wanted me to teach the class and James Wentz (program head for industrial maintenance) to conduct the lab. It seemed strange that a program head would work as a lab assistant just for this motor class and leave the teaching to me. This like many times in the past shows how the school took advantage of me. The second year classroom was not even set up to teach any classes in it because they had just moved the materials from one location to another. The room they wanted me to teach in was very unsafe; I turned down the motor class for safety reasons. Part of the motor course consists of covering safety procedures, which the school wanted me to violate by allowing me to teach in that classroom. As you can see by the pictures I provided, things were all over the floor in boxes because there were no shelves to place the things they had moved from the old electronic classroom and the material they had brought back from UTEC. Over half of the things in the classroom did not work and I did not have time with my full-time load to sort through the things to determine what worked and what did not work. I suggested they provide me with a lab assistant to sort through the things, but they denied the two individuals that wanted to work for me. Bob Harrison, the previous electronic instructor, had a lab assistant named Reginald Blackmon to help him, and Dan Parmer, the computer engineering program head, has a lab assistant or work-study student to help him in his lab. But I was denied a lab assistant or work-study student to help me with my lab. Just the idea knowing that after a year the electronic program would no longer exist put an extremely large amount of pressure or stress on me. The way the school treated me was very hard to accept. The school realized that no one would give me a chance to work full-time and they took advantage of me for many years. Also knowing my second year classroom was not safe to teach in next semester and the school wasn't going to offer an assistant to help situate or straighten it out became an additional burden on me. It has been very hard for me to go to sleep every night knowing how I was treated; I even became sick many mornings before going to school because I was so worn out. But I've never missed a day of work in my entire life. I could not continue going on like this and told them that I was resigning. Jim Hillier left a message on my answering machine for me to turn in a letter of resignation to Dan Parmer, and I did that. Later, Dan Parmer approached me and told me to turn in a letter of resignation to President Dr. Michael Taylor, and I did that also. On December 10, 1999 President Dr. Michael Taylor responded; he acknowledged the 11 years I worked for Stanly Community College. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29U.S.C. 794, as protecting employees from discrimination based upon disability in Federally financed programs and activities. Section 504 stated: "No otherwise qualified handicapped individual shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Structure Of Title II. 1. Section 202. Discriminatory employment practices easily fall within the plain meaning of Section 202. That section states: "Subject to the provisions of [Subchapter II - Public Services], no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." The CONSTITUTION OF NORTH CAROLINA, Article I, Section 1. states: "The equality and rights of persons. We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness". My experience with Stanly Community College shows how individuals with disabilities continue to encounter various forms of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion, the discriminatory effects of benefits, jobs, or other opportunities.
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