Dave's current collection of six automobiles includes a 1962 Impala SS, a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, and a 1972 Corvette with only 5,000 miles that he has owned since it was new. In 1997, he petitioned an odometer fraud lawsuit involving the Charger to the U.S. Supreme Court. (See especially www.diersen.com/odometer) European American Immigrant Dave’s ancestors were Lutheran farmers who immigrated from Germany in the 1840s and 1850s. His ancestors on his father’s side have lived in Crete, Illinois since 1854 and his mother and brother continue to live there in a house his grandfather built on land his great great grandfather bought near downtown Crete in 1864. Dave has lived with his wife, Karen, in Wheaton, Illinois since 1978. Work Ethic vs. Preferences While he attended Crete-Monee High School, Dave washed dishes in the basement of the S.S. Kresges in Chicago Heights, Illinois to buy a new car to commute to college. He worked his way through college delivering mail in Park Forest, Illinois and in 1970, he became the first of his ancestors to earn a college degree. Upon graduation, he immediately got a job and soon obtained a financial hardship draft deferment to help support his mother and brother because his father had died suddenly in 1969. Dave’s first job after college was as a Retail Sales Manager for Firestone Stores in Chicago Heights. But his plans for moving up in the automotive industry were dashed in 1971 when Oldsmobile told him it had to withdraw its job offer because of pressure from EEOC to hire minorities. That resulted in Dave accepting an offer from IRS to be a Revenue Officer in IRS’s Harvey, Illinois office, a position that allowed him to keep the three years of federal seniority that he had earned working for the Park Forest Post Office. First Experiences with Federal Reverse Discrimination Dave soon learned that just about all of IRS’s employees were Democrats and many were veterans (who enjoyed the benefit of veteran's preference points in their federal employment). Even though he is not a veteran, Dave fully supported (and continues to support) the agency’s practice of giving preferential treatment to its employees who are veterans. However, throughout the nine years he worked at IRS, Dave made it clear to his coworkers and superiors that he opposed the agency’s practice of giving preferential treatment to its Democrat, minority, and female employees. Needless to say, that adversely impacted his career progress at IRS. While IRS promoted Dave to GS-12 in 1974, after that, IRS routinely gave promotions for which Dave applied to lesser qualified Democrat, minority, and female employees. Dave passed the CPA examination on his first attempt in 1979. Primarily because of that accomplishment, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the federal agency that conducts audits and studies for Congress, granted Dave’s request in 1980 to transfer from IRS to GAO’s Chicago Field Office as an Analyst, but only on the condition that he accept a $6,000 pay cut. Dave soon learned that GAO did not require similarly qualified minorities and females to accept such pay cuts to transfer from IRS. He also soon learned that just about every one of GAO’s employees was a Democrat and that the agency was under even greater pressure from Congress than IRS had been to give preferential treatment to its Democrat, minority, and female employees. He also soon learned that at age 31, GAO considered him to be too old to have a successful career. As he had done at IRS, Dave made it clear to his GAO coworkers, subordinates, and superiors that he opposed the agency’s practice of giving discriminatory preferential treatment to its Democrat, minority, and female employees. In addition, he made it clear to them that he opposed the agency’s practice of giving preferential treatment to its younger employees. Just as it had adversely impacted his IRS career, Dave’s expression of opposition to preferential treatment adversely impacted his GAO career. Retaliation GAO’s retaliation against Diersen worsened in 1988 after he told his superiors that he had become an active participant in a class action lawsuit against GAO, Chennareddy, et al. v. Bowsher in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a lawsuit that claimed the agency’s practice of giving preferential treatment to its younger minority and female employees had resulted in age discrimination. The retaliation became even worse after he made his opposition and participation known to elected officials including his Congressman Henry Hyde, to the Congressional Committees that oversee GAO, and to the news media. Dave’s superiors denied him developmental opportunities and job assignments in which he could contribute the most to GAO. They gave him undesirable job assignments and assigned him problem employees to supervise, to work with, and to work for. They gave him unrealistic performance expectations and unfair performance appraisals. They denied him bonuses and gave him either minimal or no annual pay increases. They delayed his promotions, did not promote him beyond GS-13, discouraged him from applying for promotions, and badmouthed his judgment, motives, and abilities. Finally, in September of 1997, they succeeded in using threats of constructive demotion and adverse transfer to force him to accept their early retirement "offer."
On September 30, 1997, the day he retired, Dave filed an administrative discrimination
complaint claiming age discrimination, reverse discrimination, and retaliation. GAO denied
that complaint on April 30, 1998 even though Dave had pointed out serious deficiencies in
GAO’s investigation. Dave has extensive evidence of GAO’s ongoing efforts to
sabotage his post retirement job search and because of those efforts, he has stopped
actively seeking employment. On July 30, 1998, Walter T. Charlton, the same attorney who
continues to represent the plaintiffs in Chennareddy, filed Diersen v. Hinchman,
a class action lawsuit against GAO in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
that claims age discrimination, reverse discrimination, and retaliation. In 2000, the
lawsuit was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. (See especially Horror Story Case 16 at http://www.adversity.net/c16_tbd.htm). Hard Work, Experience, and Qualifications Dave has three masters degrees. After attending the University of Illinois in Chicago, Dave earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from Northern Illinois University in 1970, an MBA from Loyola University in 1976, a Master of Science in Accounting from DePaul University in 1980, and a Master of Science in Financial Markets and Trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1997. Dave has six professional certifications. He has been a CPA since 1979, a Certified Internal Auditor since 1981, a licensed CPA in Illinois since 1982, a Certified Fraud Examiner since 1990, a Certified Government Financial Manager since 1994, a Certified Financial Services Auditor since 1996, and a Forensic Accountant since 1997. Dave has a substantial amount of experience serving on the board of a nonprofit organization. He was the Treasurer of the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Government Accountants 1983-1985 and its Membership Director 1986-1996. He served on the Illinois CPA Society’s Membership Committee 1989-1998. He has long been a member of many professional accounting, auditing, fraud investigation, and management associations. Dave’s areas of specialization include federal agency policies, procedures, operations, and controls, especially at the financial institution regulators and IRS as well as internal controls over the use and marketing of financial products. He has been listed in Marquis Who’s Who since 1988. Since leaving GAO, Dave has become an arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers, provided assistance to Attorney Charlton in pursuing the Chennareddy and Diersen lawsuits against GAO, done financial analysis and consulting work, and published two websites – www.miltonrepublicans.org and www.diersenconsulting.com. In 1999, Dave Diersen became the Treasurer and a Director of Adversity.Net, and a Legislative Liaison for the American Institute of CPAs and the Illinois CPA Society, and a Republican Precinct Committeeman. In 2000, he became the Webmaster for the Milton Township Republican Central Committee and the Chairman of its Website Committee. In 2001, Dave became the Illinois Editor for www.GOPUSA.com. For additional details on Dave’s professional and personal background, visit his website at www.diersenconsulting.com. Testing for Skills is Racist? Like many of us, Dave is displeased, even aghast, that the Democratic Party and the federal agencies it controls have sought to discredit the legitimacy of test scores on the altar of "disparate impact and demographic preferences." After all, the scores Dave received on the many academic and other tests he took throughout his life played a major role in attaining his educational, employment, and professional goals. His scores on the tests he took in high school got him into the upper 20 percent of his class. His class rank and his score on the ACT helped him get into college. His score on the Post Office examination helped him get a job with the Post Office. His scores on many academic tests while in college helped him earn an undergraduate degree. His score on the Federal Service Entrance Examination helped him get a job with IRS. His score on the ATGSB helped him get into graduate school. His scores on many academic tests while in graduate school helped him earn three masters degrees. His score on the CPA examination helped him become a CPA and get a job at GAO. His score on the Certified Internal Auditor examination helped become a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA). Finally, his being a CPA and CIA helped him obtain additional professional certifications.
Since Dave first became a federal
employee in 1966, he has watched in dismay as the federal government systematically
lowered its hiring standards and replaced its objective performance measures with
subjective ones -- all of which were done in order to hire and advance more and more
minorities and females. Dave points out that because IRS, GAO, and many other
federal agencies have denied that they give preferential treatment to their minority and
female employees, to explain why they give them faster promotions and larger pay
increases, they have no choice but to make the false argument that the minorities and
females they hired in recent years are far superior to the white males like Dave who they
hired in the past. Diersen Qualifications Summary Dave is uniquely qualified to be an officer and director of Adversity.Net because of the experience he gained at IRS and GAO, the experience he gained as a director of a professional association, his education, his professional certifications, his willingness to take on reverse and other forms of discrimination at IRS and GAO, and his willingness to suffer the resultant retaliation, including having his job search sabotaged by his former GAO superiors. (Editor's Note: Dave Diersen and I first made contact in 1998 as a result of his reading Adversity.Net on the Web. I was immediately impressed by Dave's sense of fair play, by his lack of racial bias, by his qualifications, and certainly by his meticulous record-keeping regarding the federal government's reverse discrimination against him. I firmly believe that if more "whites" (European Americans) had Dave's dedication to fairness and equality, as well as Dave's willingness to fight for his beliefs, then reverse discrimination would crumble and disappear overnight. -- Tim Fay.)
|
|||||||||||
