ZAMUDIO SUBPOENAS ISSUED

Spokeswoman: CU Has Handled Issue With 'Compassion'

Several CU faculty and others have been named in a federal lawsuit filed by
Margaret Zamudio, a Latina professor of sociology who alleges her refusal
of employment by the University amounts to discrimination.

Zamudio first sued the university last year and has amended her original
complaint, asking the court to prevent the University from dismissing her
at the end of the 2001-02 academic year, at which time her current
employment arrangement terminates.

"I want to work at CU," the professor said.

Hired in 1996 as the sole minority in the sociology department, Zamudio has
admitted to being a rehabilitated drug addict. She was banned from campus
without pay following her arrest last November on suspicion of selling
cocaine to a police informant. But in January a Boulder District Court
judge dismissed the drug-dealing charge when Zamudio pleaded guilty to
possessing drug paraphernalia, a lesser offense.

Though CU reinstated Zamudio shortly after the court's decision, it later
sent the professor a notice that she would not be re-appointed to her
faculty position.

Her suit alleging discrimination on the basis of race and disability was
first filed in U.S. District Court in Denver in February after the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission granted the professor permission to sue.

In addition to asking the university to reinstate her, Zamudio also said CU
violated its contract with her.

"They didn't evaluate me the way I was supposed to be evaluated," Zamudio said.

And the professor alleges the university violated the Family Medical Leave
Act (FMLA) by illegally withholding her pay.

She also said her dismissal is discriminatory when compared with the case
of another CU sociology faculty member, who is white, and who, like
Zamudio, pled guilty to an identical drug-related offense stemming from a
sociology department party held at the home of a department member in 1998,
at which Zamudio said drugs were allegedly available.

Zamudio said the presence of illicit drugs at the party caused her drug
problem to resurface.

Zamudio's suit claims that white professor Dan Cress, who was arrested
after the party on charges of careless driving, driving under the
influence, possession of marijuana and of paraphernalia, was not dismissed
by CU, although he later pled guilty to the DUI and the paraphernalia charges.

Zamudio said her dismissal was unfair if compared with Cress's case.

"They tried to force me to resign," Zamudio said. "They can't do that. It's
against the law."

She added that she has put her past drug use behind her.

"I've been clean," Zamudio said.

Along with Sociology faculty member Patricia Adler, the suit names several
CU faculty and administrators as defendants, including Dennis Mileti, chair
of the Behavioral Science Institute, Thomas Mayer, associate chair of the
sociology department, and Peter Spear, the former dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences who is now an administrator at the University of Wisconsin.

All are white, according to the suit.

The suit also names two CU lawyers and CU's Board of Regents.

Zamudio said Monday that everyone named in the suit, except for Spear, has
received a subpoena.

CU spokeswoman Bobbi Barrow confirmed the university has received a copy of
the amended suit and a list of those named in the suit.

She said CU could not respond to the allegations levied by Zamudio, citing
pending litigation. And citing personnel confidentiality, Barrow said she
could not release CU's letter detailing the reasons why Zamudio was not
re-appointed.

The university has done its best to handle the situation, Barrow said.

"The university has treated this issue from the beginning with compassion
and responsibility," Barrow said.

In addition to Zamudio's allegations, the suit states that CU's sociology
department has a history of "institutional racism."

It points to a 1995 audit of the department, solicited by the university's
chancellor, which studied alleged racism in its ranks. The audit states the
department's racial atmosphere was the reason three Latino professors left
the university.

Those findings - by Harvard-educated former American Sociological
Association - president Joe R. Feagin, were upheld again in June, when
Feagin concluded that a "recurring pattern" of Latino professors leaving
the university suggested the need for a thorough investigation by an
outside committee that included substantial representation from scholars of
color.