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Cheryl Boulden Case Summary

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The underlying issues in both cases are racial discrimination. For Cheryl Boulden in the affirmative action case the issue is being “an African American woman among the good ol’ boys in Indiana.” She was recruited because of race and her permanent handicap was seen as an asset for a diversity program lacking any. Yet these qualities made her a target of racism. Susan Finn’s ethnic discrimination presents a dilemma of how to deal with a contract physician’s abusive behavior “toward Hispanics and female staff as well as patients” (Reeves, 2006, p. 79). While the issues of racial and gender discrimination is not unusual, the failure of these agencies to address multiple complaints is.
Identifying the Underlying Issues of Diversity Management
By the time Cheryl Boulden penned her letter to President William Clinton it was much too …show more content…

Overcoming the dilemmas presented above requires a top down diversity training and management program. Cheryl Boulden’s dilemma required a solution from upper management, but they failed her by referring action back to the supervisor that was the cause of the problem. Human Resources should assign an individual as a diversity tsar, responsible for reviewing all complaints and following the case until its conclusion and having authority to issue disciplinary actions. I would make diversity training a criteria of for assessing an employee’s annual performance review. In this case either Cheryl or her supervisor should have been transferred to another location. Overcoming the dilemma of Susan Finn and her employees also requires that the organization approaches diversity management from a different view. Their diversity problem stems from contract employees, therefore their contract should include a zero tolerance clause toward employee/patient relations. Diversity training should be mandated for all contract employees as a requirement of their contract and all violator’s contract should be

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