Posted on 04/21/2004 11:40:16 AM PDT by chance33_98
Coca-Cola Urged to Resist Jesse Jackson; Deval Patrick Resignation Applauded
4/21/2004 2:38:00 PM
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To: National Desk
Contact: Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center, 703-237-1970 http://www.nlpc.org
WASHINGTON, April 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, today urged the Coca-Cola board of directors, with whom Jesse Jackson reportedly met yesterday, to resist further monetary and policy concessions to Jesse Jackson.
Jackson accused the company of not complying with a "diversity agreement" between the company and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Jackson also protested the recent resignation of Coke General Counsel Deval Patrick, who Jackson claimed was "unceremoniously removed."
Flaherty said "Coke is one of Jesse Jackson's biggest financial backers, making six-figure gift after six-figure gift. But the company is finding out the hard way that Jackson cannot be bought, only rented. Every time Coke kicks in, Jackson ups the ante. The Coke board should end the shakedown once and for all by cutting off financial support for Jackson and his groups."
Coca-Cola is one of the worlds the most widely-used consumer products. Many, many Coke consumers, employees and shareholders object to Coke's support for Jesse Jackson. The issue takes on greater urgency now that American troops are fighting in Iraq. On April 4, Jackson accused American soldiers of "murder" and proposed that the United Nations sanction the United States for "crimes against humanity."
Patrick was hired in 2001 as general counsel and became corporate secretary in 2002. Previously, he served as assistant attorney general for Civil Rights in the first Clinton administration. At Justice, Patrick involved the Department in a series of controversies ?- from promoting racial quotas to opposing California's Proposition 209.
Flaherty continued, "Deval Patrick's departure is a positive development, but Coke never should have hired such a controversial figure in the first place. Patrick is an activist with a political agenda. It's hard to see how Coke benefited by associating with Patrick's views, with which so many of its customers disagree. There is a report that Patrick may stay on to the end of the year. It is better if he departs now."
In 2001, NLPC filed a formal IRS Complaint against the Citizenship Education Fund (CEF), Jesse Jackson's largest nonprofit group. It is pending.
In 2002, Toyota stopped public support for Jackson's organizations in response to an NLPC request. In 2003, NASCAR apparently ended support for Jackson in response to an NLPC-led protest, which generated extensive media attention and mobilized thousands of NASCAR fans. In late 2003, the New York Stock Exchange denied Jackson use of the Exchange floor for a fundraising event, in response to NLPC.
NLPC promotes ethics in public life, and sponsors the Corporate Integrity Project.
In 1994, six black employees of Texaco filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Texaco based upon their assertion that they didn't think they had received the positions nor the pay to which they felt they were entitled. For good measure their attorneys added the assertion that Texaco had established a pattern of racial discrimination. In short order, with strong encouragement from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (where Bill Lann Lee made his home at the time), from the Clinton Justice Department, and from the Clinton EEOC, 1400 or so other black employees joined the suit which the judge quickly certified as a "class" for the lawsuit.
In the face of continued threats of racial boycotts by the usual racial special interests such as the NAACP and its Legal Defense Fund; and ...
In the face of years and years of ongoing government harassment, especially from the Clinton Justice Department and the Clinton EEOC; and ...
In the face of massive amounts of negative publicity (from the NAACP and the plaintiff's lawyers) which was affecting Texaco’s stock prices and profits; therefore ...
Texaco, Inc., decided that a $176 million settlement made good business sense. It became a simple business deal. $176 million to get these people off its back was small potatoes in Texaco's overall revenue picture. Texaco's stock prices rose the very day they announced the settlement.
The settlement by Texaco, Inc., approved by the Court on March 21, 1997 contained the following major components:
(a) $115 million in cash to the 1400 - 1500 aggrieved minority employees; ...
(b) Over $20 million in salary increases to the aggrieved minority employees; and ...
(c) Approximately $35 million for "diversity / sensitivity training", a new corporate requirement for employees; and ...
(d) The creation of an Equality and Fairness Task Force; an independent committee selected by Texaco and the plaintiffs, with court approval, which has the power to implement personnel policies designed to rectify alleged discriminatory practices by Texaco.
The original Chair of the Texaco Task Force, approved by the Court on June 24, 1997, was none other than former United States Attorney General for Civil Rights, Deval L. Patrick.
Deval Patrick was subsequently hired by Texaco as Vice President and General Counsel, the better to oversee ongoing racial-preference policies at the oil giant. Texaco achieved an affirmative action two-fer in hiring Patrick: (1) He's black and (2) He was trained by U.S. DOJ in enforcement of racially preferential hiring policies. As of Jan. 2001, Mr. Patrick has left Texaco to take a job as general counsel at Coca Cola following the soft-drink company's settlement of a similar class action lawsuit. Thus, Mr. Patrick has become a highly paid overseer of corporate racial preferences.
Deval Patrick previously served under Bill Clinton as head of the U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of Civil Rights from 1994 to 1997. Bill Clinton illegally appointed Bill Lann Lee to replace Deval at Justice.
Interview: Former Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick received his Bachelor's from Harvard College in 1978, and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1982. In 1994, after working for a law firm in Boston, he joined the Justice Department during the first term of Clinton's administration as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. There, he was responsible for enforcing federal laws prohibiting unlawful discrimination. Mr. Patrick now serves as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the Coca Cola Company.
When did you become involved in the Civil Rights Movement?
I have always been interested in the issues. During the '50s and '60s there was a lot of activity around civil rights. When I became a lawyer my first job was with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and I did civil rights work on the death penalty and voting rights. Actually, that is how I met Clinton. I sued him in a voting rights case! And then when I was in private practice doing business cases, my pro bono work was in the area of civil-rights work, so I have been involved with these issues for a long time.
You sued Clinton and then ended up working for him? Did you win?
Well, we settled. I spent a lot of time with him working on the details.
[SNIP]
We got very involved in affirmative action, although not because we wanted to. There is no affirmative action program in the Civil Rights Division. We got involved because the Right turned it into a political issue and we were the source of that thinking and the practical examples of how to respond. We spent a lot of time on that with pretty good outcomes. We also spent time on violence around abortion clinics dealing with issues around balancing appropriate freedom of expression with protecting a woman's right to choose.
Wonder how closely he worked with Gorelick at DoJ.
The President of the Harvard Alumni Association has announced the results of the annual election of new members of the Harvard Board of Overseers. The results were released at the annual meeting of the Association following the University's 347th Commencement. The five newly elected Overseers, in order of their finish, are:
Jamie S. Gorelick, 20,732 votes; David D. Ho, 20,381; Deval L. Patrick, 17,611; John Rockwell, 17,360; C. Dixon Spangler, 16,708; Candidate who received the sixth highest number of votes, 14,854.
Pictures include:
Sarah Alvarez, Amy DeAngelis, Deval Patrick, Elizabeth Patton, and Emily Benfer with Former Attorney General Janet Reno.
Peter Edelman, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, Deval Patrick and outgoing Equal Justice Works Board Chair Greg Landis. [Note: Peter Edelman and his wife Marian Wright Edelman are old friends of the Clintons from their Yale days--Fedora]
Deval Patrick, Equal Justice Works CEO David Stern, and Janet Reno.
Jamie Gorelick, partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, who served as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, talks with her former boss.
A Justice Department task force, including FBI officials, investigated the FBI's handling of the Weaver case and recommended that criminal prosecution be considered for several FBI officials. The task force produced a 542-page report evaluating the government's action on Ruby Ridge. Though federal officials have thus far refused to release the report, copies have leaked out to the New York Times and Legal Times, which published an excerpt in March. Deval Patrick, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, rejected the recommendations in the report, deciding that excessive force had not been used.
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