All sides in the Grandview Golf Course case have been frustrated by how long it has taken the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to complete the investigation.

At different points during the last two years, even the agency's Executive Director Chad Lassiter has acknowledged the delay and said the commission was doing it's best, pointing to a downsized investigation team that had to manage a high caseload.

Such concerns are at the root of lawsuits and complaints from the very people who work there. The agency's own chief counsel acknowledges a backlog of cases and a need to review policies and procedures to ensure best practices.

Current and former state employees have told the York Daily Record/Sunday News that the agency has not handled investigations properly. Two people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, and two former employees used their names. Additional state employees, who are concerned about their jobs, said they were working together to be able to soon talk as a group.

Questions about the investigation

"The investigations are fixed," said a state employee of 10 years. "We do not do investigations. You basically have to fit a case to what a supervisor believes, and you have to find the evidence to fit that. I don’t trust anything that goes on there."

That's what happened to Pamela Harris when she was investigating the Grandview case, the employee said. "No matter what you submit, it will not get through. You have to write it the way the supervisor wants."

More:'They just didn't want us there': Black women golfers testify at Grandview hearing

Harris was one of the top investigators consistently, the employee said.

"Whenever she found no probable cause in the Grandview case, they changed it," the employee said.

The Grandview case started on April 21, 2018, when former York County commissioner Steve Chronister called 911 on five black women he claims were golfing too slowly and not following club rules at the Grandview Golf Course in Dover Township.

Karen Crosby, Carolyn Dow, Sandra Harrison, Myneca Ojo and Sandra Thompson said they faced racism and sexism that day, and Chronister has relentlessly defended making those calls, rejected claims of discrimination and said his family has been treated unfairly.

In late January, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission found probable cause of discrimination, siding with the women. That decision came a year and a half after public investigatory hearings were held in York.

Chronister opposed that finding and accused the agency and Lassiter of corruption. He claimed Harris, the original investigator assigned to the case, resigned from her position on Jan. 17 because she said she could no longer work for an unethical organization.

Harris, who now works for the state Department of Human Services, did not address Chronister’s claims that her determination in the Grandview case was different than the probable cause the agency released 13 days after she left the Human Relations Commission.

“I am sorry, as a State worker, I am not able to confirm or deny anything that you have mentioned in this email," she wrote to a reporter. "Even though I have left the PHRC I am still not able to make any comments about this case.”

Chronister has called her “a hero” and asked state lawmakers and the attorney general to give her whistleblower protection and investigate the commission. So far, no state lawmakers have taken up that task.

Around the time when Harris received questions from the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the commission put in place a confidentiality policy, Lassiter said.

It's not a new policy to keep people from talking to the press, according to the agency's chief legal counsel, Leslie Marant.

"It's a policy that says employees are not allowed to talk about their cases. They can't talk about the facts of the case with others," she said.

An employee, who said the agency's investigations are "fixed," said a supervisor told her to rule "no probable cause" in an HIV case that she felt was clearly discriminatory. She had to go above the supervisor to get justice in a case in which she said a person was fired for having HIV. That case was before Lassiter's time at the agency and it was resolved when the person with HIV was allowed to return to work.

In another case, a supervisor told her to rule against a chicken company because the supervisor didn't like how chicken processing companies generally treat Mexican people, the employee said.

Witness:Grandview Golf Club hearing: 'I saw everything. It's not right.'

"The whole agency needs to close down and revamp. I’m an African-American woman, and I know I shouldn't say that about a civil rights agency, but tax money should not be paying the agency," the employee said. "People don't have proper training, and they need to close and put in the right people who will fight for the rights of everyone, including the disabled."

She does not blame Lassiter and doesn't believe Lassiter could help change things there "because his hands are tied. He wants to do a lot, but he can't do much of anything."

'We are reviewing current training procedures'

Lassiter declined to comment for this story.

All of the employees who spoke to the York Daily Record/Sunday News raised concerns about how investigations are handled.

Marant, the agency's chief lawyer, said commission investigations have standards and procedures that are supposed to be followed.

"They are being looked at and revamped to make sure we are using best practices," Marant said. "We are reviewing current training procedures to ensure we're utilizing the best practices."

She said the review was not prompted by how the Grandview case was handled. "We always want to make sure we are using best practices," Marant said.

When asked about employees' claims that a supervisor's biases are driving the outcome of investigations, Marant said, "People come to jobs with biases. Training allows them to check their biases."

Another state employee, who said he worked with investigators directly for more than a year, "heard a number of issues and concerns."

"They said they had to fabricate outcomes in investigations," he said. "It's a dog and pony show. No one can take the agency seriously if it doesn't abide by it's own mission."

He said the commission did appropriately handle some "clear-cut cases of discrimination. Justice was served when it was very cut and dry and undeniable, when you can't fudge facts."

"But by and large, there's tons of room for improvement," he said.

Two additional employees, who have filed legal action against the commission in separate matters, say the Grandview case was mishandled.

Cheryl Williams, who worked for the agency for nearly 20 years and served as a union steward, admits she had a tumultuous relationship with the state Human Rights Commission. As a union leader, she said it came with the territory. She worked in both the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh offices during her employment, and retired in 2015.

"A woman and person of color who is outspoken is pretty much condemned in society. I was out front, voicing concerns and complaining a lot. That was my job," Williams said. "Management didn’t give respect to the union that they should. When union people do their jobs, they're labeled and harassed by management."

More:'I didn't think it was fair': Grandview Golf incident goes before human relations commission

One of the concerns she voiced often was about large caseloads that made it hard for workers to properly investigate each one, she said.

Williams wasn't privy to the Grandview investigation, but she said she could see in retirement that Lassiter wasn't handling it properly.

"He came out showboating during his first couple months as executive director. He did a lot of pontificating in terms of resolving the Grandview issue, but it hasn't happened," Williams said.

Williams admits she doesn't see eye to eye with him. The two had a disagreement in email when she reached out to him for help with a dual filing in a legal complaint she has against the agency.

But that doesn't make her opinion of the Grandview case or agency any less valid, she said. During her decades with the agency, she worked with several executive directors through the years.

"The Grandview case was mishandled by the executive director, the former chief counsel and all of the management people involved in it. They should’ve resolved it," Williams said.

She also thought it was exorbitant for each of the five women to seek $500,000.

"Give me a freaking break. There are way too many traumatizing events that happen to people of color versus what happened in that situation. It's appalling that anyone would even ask for $500,000," Williams said.

Several declined invitations

There should have been some education, sensitivity training, new policies or changes in place at Grandview, she said.

The hearing in York should have been a fact-gathering investigation, Williams said. The executive director and commissioners should not have demonstrated a position, she said.

A private conciliation was originally scheduled in the Grandview case for early February, but it was rescheduled by the state several times. The conciliation was designed as a mediation to reach a resolution. The women were seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chronister wanted to create a free youth golf program for York City kids.

Both Chronister and the women decided not to meet.

"Steve Chronister declined every invitation we've ever extended to him," said Marant, attorney for the commission.

The case since February has been under review by state Human Relations Committee attorneys, who could decide to send it to a public trial. As of Wednesday, Marant said there had been no change in the case.

All five women this week started legal action against Chronister and other defendants. Ojo and Crosby on Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg that includes conspiracy to violate constitutional rights, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Harrison and Dow on Tuesday filed a similar lawsuit in federal court. Thompson, an attorney and president of the York NAACP, started a case in the York County Court of Common Pleas but hasn't filed a complaint.

Jelani Cooper, a former assistant chief counsel at the commission from 2014 to 2019, said the Grandview case was treated differently from the beginning.

"The executive director didn't know what he was doing and would not listen to legal advice," he said. "He was getting too involved in the investigation."

A top priority case

The Grandview case was made a top priority ahead of more than a thousand cases.

"Those ladies' cases jumped everyone's case," Cooper said. "We have people losing houses and jobs. I understand it was getting national attention, but it should've followed the normal course and not jumped in front of other cases. A lot of people suffered harms, and we still had obligations."

Cooper, who is black, is suing the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in federal court for discrimination and filed a whistleblower complaint in the state. He claims he was retaliated against for trying to improve workplace culture and start a diversity committee.

"There weren't enough people at the agency to handle the caseload. The budget was down. We didn't have the manpower we needed. And I wanted to look at why we weren't hiring or retaining more people of color," Cooper said.

"People were always so afraid to speak up," he said. "That’s why they were able to keep the problems going on for so long."

Marant wouldn't comment on Cooper's lawsuit. "It's pending litigation. I can't comment on that," she said.

But Marant said she's aware of the agency's backlog of thousands of cases.

"We're working on addressing our backlog, how it came to be and what we're doing about it," she said.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission previously reduced staff during a past budget shortfall and have been managing cases with fewer workers.

"We can't get back to what we were doing with 200 employees with a reduced-sized staff, but we can look at what we can do better," Marant said.

The agency doesn't want cases to go on as long as Grandview has, she said.

"We don't want unfounded claims of discrimination hanging over a respondent, and we don't want founded claims going unaddressed for a long time," Marant said.

The commission is looking at every aspect of day-to-day operations to make sure citizens are served in a timely fashion, she said.

"Justice delayed is justice denied," Marant said. "If something is broken, let's fix it. If not, let's keep what works."

Candy Woodall is a reporter for the USA Today Network. She can be reached at 717-480-1783 or on Twitter at @candynotcandace.

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