📧 “Vets in Higher Ed”
Hi David (Philipps),
Thanks for sending me your email on Twitter, and sorry for taking so long to follow up; my partner's been out of town and our daughter is nearing the 'terrible twos'...
I've CCed a friend, LCpl Josh Terry, a designer at T Brand Studio who would like to help in order to explore an interest he has in investigative journalism. He and I have been trying to wrap our heads around whether some of the stuff I outline on www.dukevets.org is newsworthy or not. Getting the story out would hopefully get a public conversation going about veterans civil rights and float all boats, so to speak. That's where I am hoping you can help, by letting us know whether any of this is a story and, if so, how to get it out there. I've tried to keep the below email as succinct as possible, even though it's not an easy task given how thoroughly I've documented stuff and the federal implications I've learned are at stake. That's also why I've put it all online. If it's a bit too detailed, or detailed in the wrong way, feel free to call me on my cell, 714-559-8025. Here goes;
Duke gets so much federal financial aid that they are legally bound by VEVRAA, a 1974 labor law that requires government contractors to enforce internal affirmative action plans IOT hire and retain veterans. I learned about it in early 2016 as a teaching assistant and ended up filing an internal complaint against my hiring manager, who had given me half the students as other assistant and the only night time section, something the EEOC calls 'underutilization.' The internal complaint was a shit show, and I later learned that Duke was already noncompliant with VEVRAA, because it had no policy protecting vets from discrimination or harassment (a VEVRAA requirement). That meant that my complaint was actually unenforceable under university policy...
After the VP for diversity bitched me out in front of 75 of my peers, a breach of confidentiality, I went to the Dept. of Labor because it was clear Duke was incapable of impartiality. VEVRAA is enforced by DoL, and a field office interviewed about a dozen managers in late 2016. DoL was a shit show too, and found no evidence of a violation, something which the interviews explicitly contradict. Thanks to Greer v. Chao, however, DoL doesn't have to do shit until their compliance process is challenged in federal court. The Congressional Research Service has seen my case and insists that I find a lawyer, but that's money I don't have... Once the DoL started doing their thing, Duke quietly altered their policies by adding "veteran status" to the list of protected categories. Because of the opinion in Greer v. Chao, it's important to note that DoL did NOT investigate, but rather did a review. I mention this because DoL insists they "investigated," but if that is the case, then the alteration made by Duke constitutes a federal obstruction of justice.
In the meantime, I was referred (by DoL) to the Dept. of Ed over an issue I had mentioned about admissions - I don't have this on the website yet. The internal complaint report (which was delayed something like six months) contained evidence that my PTSD diagnosis influenced the admissions committee's decision (to reject an earlier application, despite my qualifications), a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I filed with the DoE's office of civil rights, which began an investigation, but then abruptly ceased following pressure from Duke. They cited a technicality about timeliness, but they refused to consider evidence I then provided that proved beyond any doubt that Duke was in fact responsible for the delay. The DoE simply ceased communicating with me. Keep in mind that after Devos was confirmed, she immediately told the DoE office of civil rights not to conduct any comprehensive investigations...
All of that I could ultimately care less about. As a light infantryman my entire career, I hate making anything about me. But I'll take a bullet for my battle buddies, and along the line, this got really personal in an unexpected way.
While I was still a student at Duke, the former president, Richard Brodhead, alerted me to the death of another vet, but he didn't know the guy's name. No administrator did. I'm trained as a researcher, so I got to work and found Alexander Ney, a former 0-3 who shot himself in the head April 16, 2008, not long after CBS' investigative report. Although stunt deaths are typically newsworthy, no story was published about him until February 2009, in Duke Today, which contains no mention of his name...!
About a year ago, I learned that Alex and I served six months together in 2-319 AFAR at Bragg before I PCSed and he deployed for OIF1. I'm trying to reach his widow and have spoken to a few friends, who, like me, want to know if he ever reached out for help or sought support from Duke in any way, especially because it was the same academic year that CBS report exposed suicide as a major issue.
More importantly, that Duke Today story contained explicit promises by the VP of Student Affairs, a douchecanoe by the name of Larry Moneta, none of which have been fulfilled nearly a decade later. What really gets me is that his quote in that story suggests that he had thought about Ney's death in light of his responsibilities. That, coupled with the treatment I witnessed with myself and other vets that I can name, makes it look more like a longterm PR cover up than sheer stupidity or not-give-a-fuck-ness. Duke seems to know they fucked up and they've been pushing vets like me out for a long time, several of whom are afraid of speaking up for fear of retaliation.
The independent student newspaper editor I talked with in the midst of it all recently blocked me on Twitter, following an online exchange (after talking with a reporter about whether they'd effectively been pressured to kill the story). So I'm not really sure how to proceed, but Josh and I would love to hear your feedback in terms of what makes something newsworthy or not and how to get Alex's story in particular out there in the open so it can help shape the conversation about veterans in higher education.
20180425 0735
Hey Logan,
Not sure I can help you out with this -- I don't doubt there are problems but things need to be pretty clear cut to work in a 1500 word report. Maybe student vets has resources that could help?
20180425 0812
Thanks for getting back to use Dave, I really appreciate it.
As for SVA, I've been asking them for awhile, and have found Will Hubbard very helpful. But much of it didn't come as a student, but as an employee and applicant, so they are rather hobbled in terms of ...jurisdiction, for lack of a better word.
Might there be any possibility for long form, investigative journalism, maybe to aim for a published report closer to veterans day? Can you advocate within NYT for coverage within a department that might be able to dive in?
20180430 1415
I'm not sure all the elements are there for an NYT investigative piece. It's a really high bar. But that doesn't mean you can't do something that has a a lot of impact elsewhere.
20180504
Thanks for this input, David, I appreciate the candor.
There's a freelancer using the stuff I mentioned to pitch a wider story on the lack of civil rights for veterans and the implications thereof. Can I put him in touch with you or someone else at NYTimes?
20181001 0840
Thank you for giving them some of your time and attention. I am meeting with four Hill staffers Thursday, I don’t know if you’re in DC, but perhaps a coffee in the afternoon to discuss the issues if you’re around?
