Racial discrimination rampant at state psychiatric hospital, commission finds

The state Human Rights Commission has found that the Vermont Department of Mental Health illegally discriminated against an employee of the state psychiatric hospital. Commission investigators heard complaints from other hospital employees of color, who told of enduring racist attitudes and comments dating back more than a decade. One employee said he found the word “nigger” scrawled on the windshield of his car.

In her complaint, Ismina Francois, a mental health specialist, alleges that she was subjected to “repeated hostile, offensive and racist comments and actions by her co-workers and patients.” That racial harassment created “an intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment.”

In a unanimous vote last month, the Human Rights Commission, which investigates complaints of discrimination, found “reasonable grounds” that the Vermont Department of Mental Health “illegally discriminated” against Francois “on the basis of race and color,” in violation of Vermont’s Fair Employment Practices Act.

It is not uncommon for patients in a psychiatric hospital to exhibit often virulent racism, but the complaint by Francois focuses on fellow employees at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin, including a psychiatric nurse who used the term “colored” rather than “person of color” in a conversation — a comment the Department of Mental Health conceded was “unquestionably inappropriate in the workplace.”

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2018/02/05/state-psychiatric-hospital-investigation-racism/