It’s an occasional practice for police officers on the line.

They’ll gather together in some location around campus for a short break. A restaurant, a coffee shop, a parking lot – anywhere that might facilitate a little socialization to break up a sometimes monotonous patrol schedule.

It’s not exactly condoned by the management, though. Officers do it on the sly – using the computer terminals in their squad cars to send messages to each other and coordinate the details.

“They didn’t call that over the radio because the lieutenant would be saying, ÃWhy are four of y’all’s tails sitting at McDonalds when you’re supposed to be on the road?'” Ann Trochum, a former Campus Police sergeant, said.

But it wasn’t until Trochum worked the roads for about six months that she heard of her coworkers doing this. Until then, she just figured they would get a meal or a coffee and go on about their work.

“When I found out I was a little hurt,” she said. “Nobody’s ever asked me to meet them for coffee, and nobody’s ever asked me did I want to go to McDonalds and get a sandwich.”

She shrugged it off, for the most part. She thought it might be her personality. She even speculated that it might have something to do with the predominantly male squad having to tell their wives they were spending time with female officers on the job.

“First I was crushed. I thought, ÃThey just don’t like me,'” she said. “But no, it’s the male thing. It’s a different world.”

She eventually made good friends with the one of the officers. After breaking into the group, she began to become a part of the activity.

But it wasn’t until later on, two and a half years after becoming the only female out of nine sergeants, that she began to really relate the problem to a larger issue.

That was when, according to Trochum and three different court systems, she was unlawfully discriminated against based on her gender.

After a settlement in the summer of 2006, the University’s position is that Campus Police did nothing wrong, according to Campus Police Chief Tom Younce.

“It just worked out for both sides,” Younce said.

But that doesn’t stop Trochum from wondering.

It doesn’t stop her from wondering why the University continued to appeal after Superior Court Judge Leon Stanback upheld the decision of two courts below him. It doesn’t stop her from wondering why nobody – not the chancellor or any other administrator – will speak with her about why the two men she says are responsible for the discrimination still have their jobs.

And it certainly doesn’t stop her from wondering how committed the University really is – despite around 11 different related policies and regulations – to properly dealing with serious claims of harassment and discrimination.

Females on the force

Police work is still predominantly male. It comes with the territory.

The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies said in its November 2006 assessment report of Campus Police that females make up only 13 percent of the available workforce.

The department is exactly on target, according to the report, with its six female officers making up 13 percent of their force.

Younce said he’s aware that it’s a challenge for women and said the department does its best to go out and actively recruit.

“Now we’ve got competitive salaries so we can go out and try to recruit and bring in a diverse police force,” he said.

But despite that fact, there are no ranking female officers in Campus Police. That’s something that has Trochum worried.

“Women still do not have a place in law enforcement,” she said. “They’re still mistreated. They’re still discriminated against. They’re still harassed – and it has not stopped.”

But she said that wasn’t something that was characteristic of the University.

And Younce echoed the sentiment.

“The University’s a much better atmosphere for women than some other law enforcement agencies,” he said.

Trochum said all that changed for her when Richard Potts was promoted to lieutenant and became her supervisor in Investigations. This action, she said, in addition to the implementation of a new pay scale system called “Career Banding,” was what would ultimately lead Trochum through a three-year battle to rectify what she saw as gender discrimination.

Career Banding

Career Banding meant good things for Campus Police.

In addition to increasing the pay of its officers to competitive levels, the state selected the department itself to be one of the first in North Carolina to implement the system.

Its intention was to set up a system of advancement that would establish different levels of competency within the ranks and increase the level of professionalism in the promotion process, Younce said.

“Everybody admitted that departments had the good ole boy system and they would promote the ones they liked into the positions whether they should have gotten the position or whether someone else was more qualified,” said Trochum, who volunteered to work on the committee that set the guidelines for the program.

After the successful implementation of the program, other universities, like East Carolina and UNC-Chapel Hill, used the model Campus Police developed.

“We set the standards, and now everybody’s looking at us to see how we did it,” Younce said.

But it didn’t work out so well for Trochum.

The “findings of fact” from the case’s original trial in the Office of Administrative Hearings give a picture of how the story was presented while in the legal system. Neither side revealed further evidence in the subsequent decision by the State Personnel Commission or the Superior Court, where Stanback concluded that, after reviewing the findings of fact, they were supported by substantial evidence in the record.

After lengthy discussions about pay and qualifications, these court documents said Assistant Chief John Dailey made pay recommendations to Younce in early August. Starting Oct. 16, 2003, all of the sergeants received letters increasing their pay to $41,100 a year – the market rate for sergeants.

Except for Trochum.

She received her letter more than two weeks later informing her of her new salary – $36,990. She was the only sergeant to receive the 10 percent deduction, and there was no difference between the pay of any of the male sergeant’s pay, the court documents said.

Although Trochum expressed her dissatisfaction at the time, Younce told her that if she had competencies he had overlooked, she needed to say so.

“I had no problems with that department until this money was available and I had a new lieutenant over me,” Trochum said.

Younce promoted Potts in the middle of the career banding process and had him serve on the committee. Court documents said he was “very vocal” about how he felt about other officers.

Before Trochum ever received her letter indicating her pay, court documents said that Potts frequently made comments about Trochum’s performance, despite the fact that all of her annual performance evaluations were positive.

He told her she was the joke of the department.

He told her she would be demoted, even though Younce told Assistant Chief Dailey that nobody was to lose rank as a result of Career Banding.

On one occasion, as confirmed by Officer William Davis during the original hearing, Potts told Trochum that she was “nothing but a goddamn secretary” and that she would be sent to patrol.

“My immediate supervisor was someone who didn’t think a female should be in the position I was in,” Trochum said. “He made my life miserable.”

Younce said he didn’t want Potts or Dailey to comment for this article. He said that the actions of Campus Police toward Trochum were ultimately his responsibility.

He said Potts has not been moved and there have been no changes in the department in terms of supervisor responsibility in connection to the case.

“The question that was up to that judge was whether he believed what he said,” Younce said. “If I thought [Potts] made [the comment], he would not be in charge of Investigations.”

By the time she got the letter, Trochum said she had had enough. Between the long delay before her pay notification and the harassment from her superior, Trochum said she thought something wasn’t right.

“[The other sergeants] were going to be paid this wonderful $41,100 and I won’t told nothing,” she said. “They always hold the worst news Ãtil last.”

“Somehow my lieutenant had all this knowledge of what was going to happen to me, but nobody had ever voiced it to me,” she said.

Younce pointed out that she was not explicit about what she thought was wrong.

“Up front in my meetings with her, no one ever said anything about discrimination,” Younce said.

That very same day, Trochum contacted Human Resources.

Dealing with discrimination

According to Amy Circosta, assistant equal opportunity officer, her office saw about 70 complaints in the 2005-2006 school year. About 59 of those complaints involved behavior that actually dealt with allegations of unlawful harassment.

Circosta, who works in the Office of Equal Opportunity, said most of the complaints are solved informally. She also pointed out that the OEO is only one of the places University employees can go to file a complaint.

HR is another main area. Having multiple outlets for complaints is a good policy, according to Director of Employee Relations Galen Jones, who said people in these situations often want to go where they feel most comfortable.

“We encourage people to come talk to whoever they want to talk to. We’ll figure out the right person,” Jones said. “It gives you a great wide open door.”

Court documents show Trochum didn’t speak with anyone directly regarding the case until Nov. 24, 2003 – about a month after her first phone call. But during that time, HR employees were busy communicating with Campus Police, specifically Dailey, about why Trochum was being paid differently.

According to Younce, the reason was simple.

“The only decision we made is that you need to have an intermediate certificate or qualify for one,” he said. “That was part of the whole decision process because we had people who obviously qualified for the certificate but hadn’t applied for it.”

The intermediate law enforcement certificate is issued by the N.C. Department of Justice for a combination of educational credits, law enforcement training hours and years of service.

Younce said his staff believed at the time that Trochum did not qualify for the certification, thus Dailey’s recommendation to pay her 10 percent less.

The DOJ did deny her application for the certificate Feb. 17, 2004. But she reapplied and received her certificate April 22, 2004, based on training she had completed before July 2003.

But during the time HR was investigating, different people gave different reasoning for her decreased pay, court documents indicate.

Dailey told HR on Nov. 5, 2003, that her pay was reduced because she didn’t have her certificate. On Nov. 11, 2003, Younce told Trochum the reasoning also included the fact that she wasn’t supervising anyone. After Trochum began a dialogue with HR, they eventually told her on Dec. 8, 2004, that the problem was experience.

With every reason, there were other officers with similar situations. But in some cases, like that of the certificate, Campus Police didn’t know about it at the time.

But Trochum said it went even further.

“They gave the money to people who had been demoted, people who had disciplinary actions on file and were current. I had never had a disciplinary action and never had a bad evaluation,” she said. “But they withheld the money from me.”

Toward a resolution

Ultimately, HR said Campus Police should adjust her salary. But according to court documents, Jones told Younce that it looked like gender discrimination. The court record also shows that Jones recommended that Campus Police consider the risks of lawsuits because, “every business has to take into account the risk of litigation, and right or wrong, what it [may] cost.”

“They had to suck eggs because all their excuses and lies didn’t work for them,” Trochum said. “So when HR said ÃPay her the money,’ they called me in three days later and said you’re going to be reassigned.”

In what all three courts ruled was a retaliatory move, the court record shows that Trochum and five other officers were reassigned. Trochum was made a patrol sergeant on night shift.

“I went from being a peer to being moved back to almost nothing and I fully believe that if I had not resigned they would have found a way to fire me,” Trochum said.

After bouts of depression and illness, Trochum resigned, seeking a job with the Capitol Police, where she later retired.

But after her resignation, Trochum took the matter to court. OAH ruled in her favor. Then the State Personnel Commission. Then the N.C. Superior Court.

Younce said his reasoning for continuing the appeals was that he sincerely believed Trochum was wrong about her claims of discrimination and retaliation.

“I would not have gone as far as I did if I didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” Younce said. “The decision wasn’t made in a vacuum.”

In the subsequent settlement on June 22, 2006, the University paid Trochum $150,000. About $82,000 of that went to her lawyer and about $30,000 was wages they owed her.

The whole process still worries Trochum.

“If the chancellor feels this way and he sets all this policy, then you’re two-faced if you don’t do something about two people which three courts have said the evidence has been proven that they did this,” Trochum said. “If he doesn’t do something, then who is going to believe anything’us going to help them in the future on that campus.”

But Circosta and Jones disagree.

“There are a lot of policies that tell you exactly where you are,” Jones said. “I think we have a good process in place.”