Under Ordinance No. 34-693, adopted by the Wichita Board of City Commissioners on October 26, 1976, CREEOC was assigned responsibility for the combined roles of its two predecessor organizations, from which CREEOC was formed in 1976. Those two prior organizations were:
The staff of the new agency, initially referred to as the "Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Office," were partially funded through federal CETA funds, and drawn from the City's Human Rights Division—an office that had previously provided staff support to the WCCR and had worked on police-community relations issues. The rest of the Human Rights Division was reassigned to serve the City Manager, directly, on PCR issues.
Functions
The official goals of CREEOC were to "eliminate and prevent discrimination, segregation and separation in all places of public accommodations, housing and employment because of race, religion, color, sex, physical handicap, national origin or ancestry, and marital status as authorized by the City Code." To attain that goal, the CREEOC performed two complementary functions:
The Civil Rights function involved the intake, investigation and analysis of discrimination complaints—as well as conferences, conciliations, or public hearings upon findings of probable cause.
The EEO function involved reviewing and monitoring the businesses and organizations having contracts or agreements with the City of Wichita, to determine if their employment practices were non-discriminatory, and were applied equally to all applicants and employees.
The responsibility of this organization was to carry out the city's adopted policies directed at civil rights and equal employment opportunity. This office assisted in the drafting and filing of civil rights complaints related to employment, housing and public accommodations. The responsibility of the program in 1979 included the review of all Equal Employment Opportunity programs submitted by vendors of the City, or by agencies in contract with the City. In addition to the review of EEO programs submitted to the city by its contractors and vendors, this office was responsible for monitoring those adopted EEO programs to determine and track their compliance with City requirements. By 1983, CREEOC had also been assigned responsibility for providing staff support to two other city advisory boards: The Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission on the Status of Handicapped People, and part of the Executive Director's salary was accordingly paid from federal funds for that purpose.
Organization and Authority
A 10-member volunteer Commission oversaw the CREEOC office and its staff, which included a paid Executive Director, overseeing 9 to 11 staffers, including investigators, compliance specialists and administrative personnel. The CREEOC commissioners were assigned to review civil rights complaint cases, following investigation by staff, and—on rotating assignments—had individual authority to rule on probable cause in civil rights cases, with authority to refer such cases to the City Attorney for prosecution. The city of Wichita was the first city in Kansas to adopt the Kansas Act Against Discrimination by reference. This act provided enforcement authority for the local civil rights commission in the areas of employment, public accommodations, and housing. CREEOC—according to a July, 1980 review by the Kansas Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights—had "identical investigative and remedial authority to that of the State commission .
Controversy
Though developed to address community civil rights and minority issues -- during a period of execeptional racial tensions and community conflict -- CREEOC was largely preoccupied with its own internal battles, and battles with other offices of city government, and played an unexpectedly minor role in the community issues it was designed to address.
Community Troubles
During the late 1970s, a period of major troubles in police-community relations -- and troubles in both external and internal race relations in local law enforcement agencies -- CREEOC generally stayed on the sidelines. CREEOC chose not to investigate the "systemic discrimination" allegations made by 18 minority police officers against the Wichita Police Department, and observed a policy of not investigating cases involving the physical use of force—saying it had no authority in that area—leaving that to other local, state and federal agencies pursuing those issues.
Internal Troubles
In 1978, CREEOC's black Executive Director, Jesse Rice, sued the City of Wichita, its City Manager Gene Denton, and its Police Chief Richard LaMunyon, alleging racial discrimination in pay, and alleging retaliation for Rice's aid to another city employee who had filed a discrimination complaint. The trial became complicated by interconnection with a police lieutenant, fired from the Wichita Police Department, who was also pursuing a wrongful-termination suit against the city. The officer later testified to alleged spying on CREEOC Director Rice by city police on the orders of the City Manager and Police Chief. On February 9, 1979, CREEOC Director Rice was fired by City Manager Denton, for "flagrant insubordination" by allegedly walking out of the Feb. 7th CREEOC board meeting, taking a tape recorder and tapes owned by the City, and dismissing the secretary who was taking the minutes of the meeting. Three of the four black members of the CREEOC board resigned in protest of Rice's firing. Rice, himself, responded by adding his firing to the lawsuit charges, filed in federal court. After two years' litigation, the suit was defeated, and Rice's attorney, Fred Phelps, Sr., was disbarred by the state courts, and censured by the federal courts.
Reorganization and Restriction
Following the controversy with Rice, the Wichita Board of City Commissioners voted to reduce the CREEOC budget, and ultimately to reorganize the office, and—by 1984—combine it with the Community Grievance Office, to form the Wichita "Citizens Rights and Services Division", and converted the CREEOC board into the Wichita "Citizens Rights and Services Board" -- a purely advisory entity—withdrawing the commissioners' authority to rule on probable cause in civil rights cases, changing the agency's role from "enforcement" to "conciliation." CREEOC's new Executive Director, Annie Montgomery, was retained as the CRS Executive Director.
