Employee sues U. for discrimination

A 47-year-old University staff member filed an age discrimination suit against the University last week, prompting the University to accuse him, in return, of sexual discrimination against his employees. William Volz, former associate director of technical support services at the University, demands in his suit to be reinstated because he was replaced by "younger, less-qualified employees under 40 years of age." The suit states that the University harassed Volz in order to force him to resign, and then fired him on July 27, 1991 "upon a pretextual ground of inept job performance." In addition, the complaint demands that the University "make [Volz] whole, by appropriate backpay awards, prejudgment interest, fringe benefits and otherwise," and says that if the University cannot give him back his job, the plaintiff should be awarded a salary, fringe benefits and other compensations until he reaches the age of 70. The University's response to the complaint stated that Volz was dismissed after a four-month probationary period in which Volz himself, according to the complaint, "[gave] proportionately less work to . . . an African-American female who worked for him." It also states he "acted in a bizarre manner by standing around [female employees'] desks without talking." The response states that during Volz's first four months on the job he failed to perform many of his job duties, including submitting status reports and reviews. It says that "it was clear that plaintiff and the job he was hired to do were not a good match." Volz's suit, however, states that "all times the plaintiff's job performance has been at least satisfactory." Volz's lawyer Daniel Weisman could not be reached for comment yesterday and University Associate General Counsel Neil Hamburg refused to comment.

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