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Equal Opportunity Office

Equal Opportunity and Nondiscrimination

The University of Kansas Medical Center is committed to ensuring equal opportunity. Its equal opportunity/nondiscrimination policy is designed to ensure that employees, students, residents, faculty and supervisors understand their rights and responsibilities. The University's discrimination complaint procedure is designed to ensure that concerns are handled in a timely and responsive manner. For inquiries regarding the University's EO/nondiscrimination policies, contact the EOO Director, 1054 Wescoe, 913-588-1206 (V) or 913-588-7963 (TDD).

What is Equal Opportunity?

Equal Opportunity is a legal right of all persons to be accorded full and equal consideration on the basis of merit regardless of protected class with regard to:

  • all terms and conditions of employment (e.g., hiring, promotion, layoff, demotion, termination, access to training)
  • access to educational programs, services and activities
  • admissions
  • academic evaluation and advancement
  • financial aid
  • athletics

Who is responsible for ensuring equal opportunity?

The policies and procedures adopted by the University of Kansas Medical Center in December 1998 reflect the following philosophy toward equal opportunity at the University of Kansas Medical Center:

  • Deans, Vice Chancellors, departmental directors and chairs, and their designees are partners with the Equal Opportunity Office in ensuring equal opportunity for students, residents, employees and faculty.
  • The University is proactive rather than reactive regarding issues and situations that may compromise its public image, conflict with its commitment to valuing diversity, or create legal liability.
  • University practices governing recruitment and selection, promotion, termination, and disability accommodation are written, readily available, and monitored to ensure compliance.
  • Response protocols are consistent and timely, ensure due process for all parties, and involve appropriate University officials at the appropriate stage.

In practical terms, the following University officials are responsible for ensuring equal opportunity and preventing discrimination.

Deans, Vice Chancellors, Directors, Chairs and Designees

  • Understand and adhere to University policies
  • Ensure that employees, including faculty, students and residents understand their equal opportunity/ nondiscrimination rights and responsibilities
  • Ensure that academic and employment decisions are based on legitimate, nondiscriminatory criteria
  • Provide reasonable accommodation for religious beliefs and the known disabilities of qualified individuals in consultation with the Equal Opportunity/Disability Specialist
  • Monitor the environment in which students and employees learn and work
  • Actively address behaviors and actions which may create a hostile work or learning environment, in consultation with the EOO
  • Respond to complaints of discrimination, including sexual harassment, in consultation with the EOO
  • Ensure the success of AA programs

Equal Opportunity Office

  • Establish policies, procedures and notification statements which conform to legal/judicial mandates
  • Disseminate policies and procedures
  • Educate campus community about EO/nondiscrimination rights and responsibilities
  • Provide advice and consultation to university officials
  • Coordinate and oversee receipt, analysis and provision of disability accommodations
  • Work with department heads and supervisors to respond at the earliest and most informal level regarding situations or behaviors that may involve discrimination
  • Investigate discrimination complaints
  • Monitor recruitment and selection, personnel actions and terms/conditions of employment
  • Receive applicant data and conduct statistical analyses for federal reporting
  • Review job qualifications to ensure nondiscrimination
  • Ensure that accurate workforce profiles are maintained and analyzed
  • Prepare and disseminate the annual AA Plan

Legal Basis of Equal Opportunity - Nondiscrimination

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VI: Prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, color, or national origin in federally-assisted programs and activities (including those which receive federal funds, grants, loans, or contracts).

Enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), U.S. Department of Education. For full text of Title VI go to http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titlevi.htm

Title VII (as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972): Bans discrimination in all terms and conditions of employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Enforced by the EEOC. For full text of Title VII, go to http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/2000e-16.htm

Civil Rights Act of 1991

Amends Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Prohibits impermissible consideration of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or disability. Allows compensatory and punitive damages -- previously available only to racial and ethnic minorities -- to be sought by victims of intentional discrimination based on sex, religion, or disability. A jury trial may be requested by any party to a case in which compensatory or punitive damages are sought. Enforced by the EEOC. For full text of this act, go to http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/cra91.html

Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972

Prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funds from using sex as a classifying tool or criterion for decisions, or using other classifications that disproportionately disadvantage one sex or the other.

Title IX is the principal law for sex discrimination against students in admissions, employment, financial aid, student organizations, and athletics.

Enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), U.S. Department of Education. For full text ot Title IX, go to http://www2.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Prohibits sex discrimination in salaries and most fringe benefits for all employees of educational institutions/agencies, including those in professional, executive, and administrative positions. Provides that a man and a woman working for the same employer under similar conditions in jobs requiring substantially equivalent skills, effort, and responsibility must be paid equally, even when job titles and assignments are not identical.

Enforced by the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor. For full text of Title IX, go to http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/epa.html

Federal Executive Order 11246

Covers federal contractors, and embodies two concepts:

  1. Nondiscrimination. Like Title VII, prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It requires elimination of existing discriminatory conditions, whether purposeful or inadvertent.
  2. Affirmative Action. Unlike Title VII, requires proactive efforts to ensure equal opportunity for certain affected groups and requires an annual, written Affirmative Action Plan.

Enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor. For full text of this order, go to http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/statutes/ofccp/eo11246.htm

Vietnam-Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974

Requires employers with federal contracts greater than $25,000 to provide equal opportunity and affirmative action to employ and promote Vietnam era veterans, special disabled veterans, and veterans who served on active duty during a war or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized."

Enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor. For full text of this order go to http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/fsvevraa.htm

Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)

As amended in 1978 and 1986, prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of age against persons age 40 and over. For full text of this act, go to http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/adea.html.

Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Applies to federal contractors. Section 503 requires affirmative action for persons with disabilities. Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in access to employment and educational opportunities.

Enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor. For full text of this act, go to http://www.dol.gov/dol/compliance/comp-rehab.htm

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

Mirrors Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, but extends coverage to most employers, public entities, and public accommodations. Requires non-discrimination, access and reasonable accommodation, but does not require affirmative action. Enforced by the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Justice. For full text of this act, go to http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/statutes/ofccp/ada.htm

Kansas Act Against Discrimination

Chapter 44, Article 10. Prohibits an employer, because of the race, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin or ancestry of any person, to refuse to hire or employ such person, to bar or discharge such person from employment or to otherwise discriminate against such person in compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment; to limit, segregate, separate, classify or make any distinction in regards to employees; or to follow any employment procedure or practice which, in fact, results in discrimination, segregation or separation without a valid business necessity. Requires reasonable accommodation for qualified persons with covered disabilities. Genetic testing and screening is also prohibited.

Enforced by the Kansas Human Rights Commission. For full text of this act, go to http://www.ink.org/public/khrc/pdf/Act.pdf.

Kansas Age Discrimination in Employment Act

Chapter 44. Prohibits an employer because of age, to refuse to hire or employ such person, to bar or discharge from employment or to otherwise discriminate against the person in compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment; to limit segregate, separate, classify, or make any distinction in regard to employees because of age without a valid business motive.

Enforced by the Kansas Human Rights Commission. For full text of this act, go to http://www.ink.org/public/khrc/pdf/Act.pdf.