Grievance filed

Published in Long Beach City College's Viking newspaper in 2006. Byline shared with Fher Romero.


Theater production assistant and Rainbow Alliance adviser Needham "Yancey" Gulley attempted to file a grievance through the classified employees union under grounds of discrimination against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students at LBCC.
"I did attempt to file a grievance through the classified employees union, which is protocol. The union did not believe that my grievance had merit and so it cannot go forward unless I obtain a lawyer and prove discrimination through the court system," Gulley said.
"If I win a case in court, the union said they would support the grievance and officially file it at that time," he said.
"It's a different beast," Gulley said March 23 in a press conference in P126 at LAC. During the conference, he announced he would file a grievance with the union. He detailed the struggle it took to organize a workshop during Flex Day aimed at nurturing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer students.
Compared with other college campuses in the South, Gulley referred to LBCC as the most homophobic college at which he's ever worked.
Trustee Tom Clark said later in an interview, "Long Beach has a very active gay community and I'm very supportive of the gay community. I'm proud that the city has been open to the gay community, but it isn't a perfect world and even if polls were taken, they would be inaccurate. Trustees would not know much about this certain issue."
Clark said he did not hear of Yancey's struggles with Flex Day and his feeling of being discriminated against.
Gulley had proposed to organize a workshop to be held on Flex Day to discuss the topics of homophobia and heterosexism as well as others.
He spoke of the obstacles that have prevented him from presenting the workshop. He sights homophobia and discrimination by some members of the administration as the main cause for his failed attempts of presenting the workshop.
Gulley had first attempted to organize a workshop for the Spring 2005 semester, but continued to be denied because he was not qualified. He said he never received notice of who would be qualified to give such an orientation. Repeated attempts failed in the following semesters.
The workshop finally took place on Wednesday, March 15.
"It's not from the students or anyone in particular, but from a mentality that we are past this, and we don't need to talk about this anymore," he said.