By Sara Russo

Loyola College, a Catholic institution located in Baltimore, Maryland, has been hit with a lawsuit charging that the school rejected a job applicant for a diversity position because his skin color was not dark enough.

The controversy began in the spring of 2001, when Loyola advertised that they were seeking a new assistant vice president for academic affairs and diversity. Denys Blell, who was then serving as associate vice president for academic affairs and diversity at the University of South Florida, immediately applied for the position. Though the original hiring notice stipulated that the position required a doctorate, Blell thought that his twenty-plus years of experience as a diversity officer might outweigh that requirement.

Blell's qualifications for the Loyola diversity position were impressive. He possesses a master's degree in African and Afro-American history, and had served in a nearly identical capacity in his job at USF for eight years. Prior to working at USF, he served as the dean of minority affairs at Case Western University and the assistant to the president for diversity at Sienna College. He has also had extensive exposure to many different cultures, since he was born in Africa, and lived in a variety of "mixed foster homes" during his childhood. He describes these environments as, "East Indian, Lebanese, Muslim, and Christian, and some with no religious affiliation."

"In terms of religion and culture and race, I know diversity," Blell stated.

"Within a few weeks, I got a letter as expected, saying thank you for applying. You're no longer in consideration," Blell recollected. "Obviously, I didn't meet the minimum requirement which was the doctorate or the JD," surmised Blell.

Around this same time, Blell recalls receiving a questionnaire from Loyola in the mail, on which he was asked about his racial background. "I crossed out the part that said 'black' and wrote 'African-American' by hand, and I mailed it," he told Campus Report.

Blell thought little more about the subject until July of 2001, when he received a message from David Haddad, Loyola's hiring official and the vice president for academic affairs at the school, inquiring whether he was still interested in the position.

When he called Haddad back, Blell asserts, the vice president told him that he had always considered him the most qualified candidate for the job because of his many years of experience, but that some other members of the search committee were adamant in requiring a PhD. for the position. Haddad mentioned that two black applicants who possessed doctorates had been interviewed, but neither had had the necessary experience for the job. "And he says, 'You know Denys, a lot of people who were involved in the original search are very angry with me because I didn't hire one of the two black applicants that I interviewed,'" Blell recollected for Campus Report.

At this point, Haddad asked Blell to describe his racial background. "He says, 'I am fully aware that the black faculty and staff administrator association on our campus fully expects me to hire somebody black for this position'….and he asked me what my background was. And I said,…'I am of Afro-Lebanese background. I am an immigrant, an American citizen, who is an immigrant from West Africa, Freetown, Sierra Leone, that is of Afro-Lebanese background,'" Blell recalled. "And he said, 'Oh, that is going to create a problem for me.' And I said, 'why.' And he said, 'I am of Lebanese descent. If I hired you, I would be open to charges of cronyism.'"

"And he says, 'But you know, what I really want to let you know is I have worked for the past twenty years to build trust with black Americans, here and in my previous institution, Miami University in Ohio. I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that trust,'" Blell recalls Haddad saying.

Despite his reservations about Blell's national origin, Haddad asked him to come to Loyola for an interview. Following an intensive day of meetings with numerous selection committees, Blell met with Haddad, and was again questioned about his race.

"He says, 'Denys, how do blacks perceive you?' And I say, 'Dr. Haddad, that's a very general question, you might as well ask me, how do whites perceive you'….I said, like with any group, I get along with some individuals," Blell recalled. "And he says, 'But tell me, do they see you as an ally? Do they see you as one of them?' And I said, 'Dr. Haddad, I don't know, I really don't know.'"

"I felt I'd been taken through the emotional wringer," Blell told Campus Report. "I thought, he is not going to hire me, and he is not going to hire me because he cannot figure out whether I'm black or he doesn't think I'm black enough."

"If you looked at me you couldn't tell," said Blell, who is of African and Lebanese descent and describes himself as "very light skinned." Literally an African-American, he was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and immigrated to America at the age of twenty-one. "People constantly ask me my background. I'm pigmentally ambiguous," he noted. "And isn't that what we mean by diversity?"

Upon returning to Florida, Blell called the president of Loyola, Rev. Harold Ridley, to voice his concerns about the interview, but Ridley did not return his calls.

"A couple of days later, I think it was July 23 or July 25, I got a voicemail from Dr. Haddad telling me he had decided not to fill the position immediately, good luck and I'll talk to you later," Blell recounted. "And I felt, this is the most discourteous thing. I became even more convinced now that the issue was race and color and national origin that was disturbing him about my background."

Blell called Haddad to ask whether race had played a role in the hiring process.

"He said, 'none,'" Blell recounted. "I said, 'how could it be. You talked extensively about your concerns to me, from the beginning, before I came, throughout the search at the end of the search, you mentioned it many, many times.' He said, 'don't get me wrong. Race and ethnicity are very important in this initiative both for internal and external reasons…when we talk about diversity at Loyola, we mean black and white. This person will have to work with the black community internal to Loyola and will have to work with the external black community. You see Baltimore is 65% black. This person will have to work with blacks in the community'…and he says, 'so you see race and ethnicity are important factors but they didn't influence my decision.' I said, 'There you go again Dr. Haddad, you're talking from both sides of your mouth. How can it not be important after everything you told me.'"

Blell asked Haddad to state what he had just said in writing, but the vice president refused.

"I felt that I wasn't black enough for him," Blell told Campus Report. "My grandmother is black African from the republic of Guinea. I was born and raised in Africa. My field I teach is African history. My culture is African. I don't have to prove anything to Dr. Haddad. Besides, there's a law that prohibits people from doing these kinds of things. In fact, the law prohibits you from discussing these kinds of matters during the hiring process."

He asked Loyola for a formal investigation, but they refused, only conducting an informal review of the search process. The college concluded that no discrimination had occurred. Blell remained unsatisfied, but he had no corroboration of the college's actions, until he unexpectedly ran into a man who had served on Loyola's search committee at a convention.

According to Blell, the man told him, "I was in one of the search committees that interviewed you at Loyola…it's unfortunate that they did not hire you. I thought you were the most qualified candidate in that pool, but my vice president was under the impression that black folks on this campus wanted him to hire somebody black…and that's why he didn't hire you." The gentleman also told Blell that Haddad had quietly hired someone for the position, a woman named Martha Wharton, who he described as "very black." Though Wharton possesses a doctorate in English and American Studies, she has only very limited experience as a diversity officer.

This conversation convinced Blell to file suit against Loyola, and in early September, 2002, he brought a lawsuit against the college in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

"I want to bring some light to this issue, because I am convinced it is going on throughout the United States," Blell told Campus Report. "You see, when universities create these positions, it is usually because they don't have anyone of color among the senior staff. And they want two things. Somebody who can do the job. But they also want a visibly identifiable minority person. So as soon as you see the person, you know, oh, Loyola has a black vice president and a Latino vice president or a female vice president. And somebody like me, they'll have to write a whole book or put a placard on the back of me, saying I am black."

"Skin color had nothing to do with the hiring," University spokesman Mark Kelly told Campus Report. "Obviously we contest what he alleges." Kelly declined to discuss the case further, and referred further inquiries to a statement released September 5, by Loyola president Rev. Harold Ridley. "Loyola's employment decision in this matter was based upon legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons that did not violate federal civil rights laws," reads the statement.

Ridley also noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had "found in Loyola's favor and dismissed the complaint." But according to Blell's attorney, Morton Edelstein, the EEOC's decision merely stated that the commission was unable to reach a conclusion on the matter. "There is no rejection process as such," the attorney noted. "In fact, the finding of the EEOC cannot be used as evidence as to either party."

"Loyola College's goal always was to hire the best person it could for the position, and I am confident it did so," President Ridley claimed in his statement.

"In this country, Blell would be considered a black man," commented his attorney Morton Edelstein, noting the irony of the case. "But he's being discriminated against because he's not black enough."

Despite his frustration with Loyola, Blell hopes that his experience will clear the way for others who are being labeled according to their race. "Increasingly, there are people like me, because of so much interracial marriage going on. And what do those people do, that new generation of people that may not fit in any category, may not visibly look like any group member?" he said. "I don't want discrimination happening to anyone, let alone this new generation of people like me that is emerging, that can't fit in those nice boxes."