GOP Bias

One never knows if such claims are true, but... it's Florida and it's the GOP. After 2000, I wouldn't trust a Florida Republican any farther than I could throw one. They deserve any bad publcity they might get!

Dismissed Black Woman Sues GOP

WASHINGTON - A black woman charged Florida's Republican Party on Tuesday with discriminating against her, based on race, and then firing her when she complained.

Nadia Naffe, 25, of Tampa was a field director for the state party from August 2003 until she was fired on April 2 after she complained to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to a lawsuit she filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Florida.

"When I went to work for them I was so disappointed in the things that I saw," said Naffe, who cried during parts of a news conference Monday at the National Press Club. Naffe, former head of the campus GOP group at the University of Tampa, is unemployed now.

Naffe said the state party required her to do outreach to African-American groups, which the lawsuit describes as illegal "race matching." Employees there also created a hostile work environment by making racially insensitive remarks, such as calling blacks "ignorant," she said.

After she took her complaints all the way to state party chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan, party officials fired her in retaliation, the suit said.

Party spokesman Joseph Agostini denied the charges.

"Allegations are simply that - allegations," he said. "We believe that once the process takes its due course these allegations will prove to be without substance."

Naffe's suit also blamed the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, saying those groups were involved with the financing and supervision of her position.