Washington – Allegations detailed in a confidential NAACP report claim that Kweisi Mfume gave raises and promotions to women with whom he had close personal relationships while he was president of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
The 22-page memorandum, prepared last summer by an outside lawyer, did not accept as true the claims lodged against Mfume by a female employee but determined that they could be “very difficult to defend persuasively” if she filed a lawsuit.
Mfume, 56, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, has denied the allegations.
In an interview Wednesday, he said the allegations in no way influenced his Nov. 30 announcement that he would leave the NAACP after nine years.
The document was intended as an assessment of the allegations as the organization’s leaders evaluated how to handle the claims of the mid-level employee, Michele Speaks.
Speaks hired an attorney and asked for $140,000, two years’ salary, in exchange for agreeing not to file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or pursuing a lawsuit, according to the report.
Speaks could not be reached for comment. Her attorney, Kathleen Cahill, declined to comment.
The NAACP hired Marcia Goodman, a Chicago employment lawyer, to analyze Speaks’ allegations. In the memo, Goodman concluded that some of Speaks’ claims – including an assertion that Mfume “touched her on the hip” – largely amounted to a “he said-she said” dispute. But Goodman wrote that other claims were more problematic.
Speaks could mount a credible claim of workplace harassment because of “the impression (that was) created that a woman must provide sexual favors to Mr. Mfume or his associates in order to receive favorable treatment in the workplace,” the lawyer wrote in the memo.
NAACP chairman Julian Bond on Wednesday would not say whether the organization’s board ultimately decided to pay Speaks.
“Whenever an allegation of any sort that violates our personnel policies comes to our attention, we investigate, and if the allegation has merit, we take action,” Bond said.
Asked whether the allegations played any role in Mfume’s departure, Bond said, “That’s a personnel matter that I cannot comment on.”
