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Thursday, April 28, 2005

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  Mfume denied the claims and said they didn't force his Nov. 30 announcement that he was leaving the NAACP after nearly nine years. He is now running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes in 2007.

"I don't engage in inappropriate behavior," Mfume, 56, told the Post. "And if I did, I'm sure after nine years there, 10 years in the Congress and seven years on the (Baltimore) City Council, it would have been an issue long before your telephone call to me."

Copies of the report were distributed at an October NAACP executive committee meeting as leaders decided how to pursue claims by a female midlevel employee, Michele Speaks, and were collected after the meeting, according to one board member.

The report does not accept Speaks' allegations as true, but found that they could be "very difficult to defend persuasively" if she sued.

Speaks asked for $140,000 - two years salary - to agree not to sue or file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the report. Speaks' attorney, Kathleen Cahill, declined to comment to the Post.

The NAACP hired Marcia E. Goodman, a Chicago employment lawyer, to analyze the 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 others 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," Goodman wrote.

She said if they held up in court, Speaks' claims could create the impression that Mfume approved raises and promotions to his "paramours" or women involved romantically with one of his older sons and damage the NAACP's reputation. Goodman analyzed salaries of women at the NAACP's national headquarters in Baltimore and found that those rumored to have close relationships with Mfume, or his son, fared better than those who did not.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond would not say whether the organization's board decided to pay Speaks.

According to another memo, Mfume faced questions about romantic relationships with NAACP employees dating to 1998. Staff lawyers investigated reports of a fight between two women, allegedly over his attentions. One woman was disciplined; the other was promoted several months later, according to one document.

Mfume, who is divorced, told the Post that he dated one of the women for "three months" and later adopted her 4-year-old son. But he said he never gave raises or promotions within the NAACP to women with whom he reportedly had intimate relationships.

© 2005 The Associated Press

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