According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, its Los Angeles chapter president has resigned in the wake of the audio tape scandal wherein Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was captured making racial comments. Leon Jenkins, who is supposed to honor Sterling prior to the controversy, said he will be resigning respectfully in order to distance the group from the negative pressure he has caused.
Sterling was banned for life from the National Basketball Association two days ago and also imposed a $2.5 million fine for violating the sports league's constitution on discrimination, Bloomberg said. The audiotape of the comments, which was released by celebrity news site TMZ on its website on Saturday, has drawn ire from US president Barack Obama and NBA team owners including Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.
Prior to the scandal, Sterling is expected to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP's Los Angeles chapter next month. However, the civil rights organization has already issued a statement asking that Sterling's name should be dropped from the NAACP honoree list. Bloomberg noted that in the year when Sterling received an award from the NAACP, he had also settled a housing discrimination lawsuit which was filed by the US government at $2.73 million. According to the 2009 lawsuit, Sterling was allegedly biased against black and Hispanic prospective tenants. At the time of the settlement, his attorney has denied that Sterling was guilty of the allegations lodged against him. Bloomberg noted that the payment was the largest in a discrimination case involving apartment rentals obtained by the US government.
The news agency noted that Jenkins rejected the notion that Sterling was racist, at least in public. In a Los Angeles Times interview, Bloomberg quoted Jenkins, who reminded the newspaper that the Clippers owner had a unique history of giving back to the children of LA, and even cited an incident wherein Sterling donated as many as 3,000 tickets to youth groups for every game.
