A former officer of the University Police has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that he was fired because of his ethnicity and because he protested racial discrimination. Ken Yuen, who is Chinese American, was dismissed at the end of September. He also filed the complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission two weeks ago. It is necessary to file a complaint with the EEOC before a federal lawsuit for workplace discrimination can be filed. According to Yuen, who worked for the UPPD for more than three years, he was told his dismissal was a result of his police radio being off for 20 minutes while he was on duty. Yuen said he does not believe he was fired because his radio was off, since he claims that other officers have not been fired when their radios were off for longer than 20 minutes. He also said he turned his radio off "accidentally." "Other officers have been found asleep when their radios [were] off," Yuen said. University Police Chief Maureen Rush declined to comment on Yuen's complaint, saying only that he was "fired for cause." Yuen, a 1986 College graduate, claims his dismissal was a result of management hostility toward him after he filed two complaints against his supervisors with the University Affirmative Action Office last spring. In the complaints, Yuen alleged that his supervisors made inappropriate racial comments. He also claimed a supervisor made an ethnic joke about the Korean man who used to clean the UPPD's uniforms. The supervisor declined to comment on the allegations last night. Yuen also said another Penn Police officer told a South Asian student to "get the hell out of the country" in the spring of 1999. According to Yuen, the Affirmative Action Office did not find evidence of ethnic discrimination. "I don't really believe they did a good investigation," he said, calling the office a "toothless tiger." Office of Affirmative Action Executive Director Valerie Hayes declined to comment on Yuen's complaints. Yuen claims he was also wrongly disciplined last January after he was a passenger in a police car involved in an accident. He said he was issued a written warning for "allegedly allowing a junior officer to participate in a prohibited vehicle pursuit," according to his written complaint to the EEOC. And last March, Yuen was suspended for insubordination, a charge he claims was invalid. Yuen said his supervisor alleged that he "took no action at the scene [of a car accident], which is a total lie." Yuen claims the supervisor told him to "shut the fuck up." Yuen said he responded harshly to the supervisor, but did not use profanity. Yuen also alleges he has been disciplined more harshly than other University police officers. He claims that one female officer was arrested at her home for disorderly conduct, but that she was not disciplined by the UPPD.
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