04538
December 9, 2004

GAC to review staff dismissals 

Detterick begins search for replacements

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE — A committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC) will review the recent termination of two senior Presbyterian Church (USA) staff members.

      The review by the council’s Personnel Committee is expected to take place in late January at the Presbyterian Center here, though no official date has been set.

      The review was prompted by a request from the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), whose coordinator was one of the employees fired.

      “There is a handbook of personnel policies that states how such matters are to be dealt with,” said Paul J. Masquelier Jr. of San Jose, CA, who chairs the Personnel Committee as part of his duties as GAC vice chair. “We’ll want to review that whatever happened has been carried out in accordance with those policies.”

      News of the review comes as efforts have started to find replacements for the dismissed staffers: Kathy Lueckert, GAC deputy executive director, and the Rev. Peter Sulyok, coordinator of ACSWP. Lueckert was Sulyok’s direct supervisor.

      The review by the Personnel Committee will examine the apparent firings in late November by GAC Executive Director John Detterick, who at the time gave no clear public explanation for the dismissals.

      “I think it’s always appropriate to do a review,” Detterick said. “Personally, I welcome it. I think the decision will stand on its merits. My experience is that it has been reviewed with other members of the council and they understand the rationale and appropriateness.”

      Lueckert and Sulyok were both members of an ACSWP fact-finding delegation to the Middle East in October that included a meeting with Hezbollah, an organization that is on the U.S. government’s watch list of terrorist organizations.

      The meeting and its widespread airing on Arabic television drew immediate protest from Jewish groups and from some within the PC(USA), especially over a comment made by an ACSWP member who said that Muslim religious leaders are more approachable in dialogue than Jewish rabbis.

      The two dismissals have sparked criticism from some other PC(USA) staff and at least one partner church who suggested the denomination buckled to appease the U.S. Jewish community, which was already angered by last summer’s General Assembly action to begin a process of phased, selective divestment in companies profiting from the Israeli government’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

      The Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon sent a pastoral letter to Lueckert and Sulyok lamenting the loss of their jobs. (Full story) The synod hosted the ACSWP delegation during its time in Lebanon.

      Detterick denied that the staff firings are tied to the divestment controversy.

      Masquelier said ACSWP originally requested that GAC appoint an independent review panel to examine the dismissals, but said guidelines do not provide for such a measure.

      “ACSWP had requested an independent committee of inquiry and there’s really no provision for that in the personnel process as I understand it,” Masquelier said.  “The GAC is responsible for personnel and they have established a Personnel Committee to deal with those kinds of matters. So that’s where it should be lodged.”

      The Rev. Nile Harper, ACSWP’s chair and a resident of the Minneapolis, MN, metropolitan area, said that ACSWP urged the GAC to appoint an independent review panel but declined to comment further.

      ACSWP was not the only one to request a review of the personnel matter, according to Detterick, who said several others also made the suggestion, though declined to say who those people were.

      When asked whether possible options the Personnel Committee might consider include restoring Lueckert or Sulyok’s jobs, Masquelier said: “I can’t get into that. I believe there is an appeals process set out in the personnel handbook that they (Lueckert or Sulyok) are open to using. Our personnel policies lay forth certain rights that employees have when actions have been taken.”

      Detterick said that he’s already spoken with two individuals about serving as interim ACSWP coordinator, a position he hopes to fill before starting a search for an interim deputy executive director sometime after the first of the year.

      “I hope to find somebody with some knowledge of the workings of ACSWP,” Detterick said. “I have been in dialogue with two people so far and continue to look. I would like to do that as soon as possible so that the work of ACSWP doesn’t get negatively impacted.”

      Detterick said he hopes to have a permanent ACSWP coordinator in place by the middle of 2005, as well as an interim deputy executive director.