Racial Discrimination

Walt Disney Co. has been hit with a third racial discrimination lawsuit arising from a radio promotion called "Black Hoe." The move follows news that attorney Johnnie Cochran is representing two plaintiffs in the matter, which stems from the promotion on Disney-owned KLOS-FM in which black plastic gardening tools were distributed to listeners and advertisers as a double-entendre on the slang pronunciation of the word "whore."

Two teachers and a secretary have filed lawsuits against the Rio Elementary School District and its former superintendent, alleging racial discrimination and harassment by a Latino administration. The lawsuits also allege the white employees were retaliated against for reporting to the Ventura County Grand Jury last year that then-Supt. Yolanda Benitez and others had improperly sought to impose a pro-bilingual educational program in the largely Latino elementary school district.

In the beginning, fried chicken was used to fight racial discrimination at UCLA. Money raised at chicken dinners supplied the $4,000 down payment on an old duplex a few miles south of the campus. Volunteers chopped through walls to join the two units, added hand-me-down furnishings and turned the building into a place where minority women students could live and study.

A dozen present and former deputies have filed suit against the Ventura County Sheriff's Department over sexual and racial discrimination complaints originally lodged five years ago. Three women and nine men, all black, contend they were subjected to an "ongoing pattern" of sexual and racial harassment at the Sheriff's Department between 1982 and 1991. The charges include jokes, pranks, and discriminatory hiring and promotion practices.

An African American man has accused his two former female employers of sexual harassment and racial discrimination, alleging the pair repeatedly abused him with epithets, a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court contends. * Anthony Ervin Smith of Costa Mesa is suing Exclusive Investigations Inc.

A former manager at Atlas Chrysler Plymouth sued the Costa Mesa auto dealership, its corporate owner and his onetime supervisor Wednesday, alleging that he was fired for complaining about a pattern of racial discrimination by his supervisor. Matthew Manley contends in the wrongful termination suit that the dealership's general manager at the time, Patrick Doyle, ordered him to fire employees because of their race.

A lawsuit filed Friday accuses Walt Disney Co.'s KLOS-FM radio station in Los Angeles of violating anti-discrimination and harassment laws last year through an on-air promotion that distributed "Black Hoes"--black plastic gardening tools--to listeners and advertisers. The suit brought by a worker at the station contends the company required employees, including African Americans, to pack and ship the promotional gifts despite staff protests that the campaign was racially offensive.

Bruce I. Yamashita finally was commissioned as a captain in the Marine Corps reserve Friday, five years after he was dismissed from the corps' officers candidate school in what has become a major civil rights case for Asian-Americans.

A federal judge agreed Wednesday to hear allegations by disgruntled Boeing employees that will postpone--and potentially undermine--a $15-million discrimination settlement between the aerospace giant and its African American employees. U.S.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Friday ordered Cal State Dominguez Hills to pay former NBA player Mack Calvin $210,000, ruling that he was the victim of discrimination based on race while coaching the school's men's basketball team during the 1996-97 season. Calvin, who is African American, had his one-year renewable contract terminated after one season as coach. The jury voted, 10-2, in Calvin's favor after four days of testimony and two days of deliberations.