Student who received Oregon grant to boost women employed in trucking says her instructors discriminated against her

When Linda Derks enrolled in Chemeketa Community College’s commercial drivers license school in 2023, she was taking her first step into a 10-year plan. 

Derks, 55, needed a fresh start after the pandemic closed her Portland diner, capping a 30-year career in the restaurant industry. She planned to get some experience driving all types of commercial vehicles before eventually establishing an animal rescue. Though she didn’t fit the now-outdated stereotype of a trucker in a $987 billion-a-year industry dominated by men, she was drawn for the same reason that many people join: hope for a living wage, freedom and the lure of the open road.

“I had just had my restaurant closed, gone through the struggles and difficulties of the pandemic like everyone else,” she said. “I was very excited to make this radical career change.”

From the first week of class, however, Derks encountered sexism, racism and discriminatory treatment from her instructors, she has alleged in a lawsuit against the Salem school. While attending the program on a state grant intended to help women, people of color, veterans and others find work in high-demand industries, Derks said she received less drive time than her male counterparts, was subjected to classroom discussions about her sexual orientation and marital status, and sat through an orientation rife with racist descriptions of Mexican and Middle Eastern drivers.

She claims the instructors, brothers Patrick and Matthew Chappell, called Mexican and Middle Eastern people filthy and warned students that women at truck stops are sex workers looking to take advantage of drivers and steal their money.

Derks’ experience highlights the challenges faced by many women in the trucking industry, even when they are ushered in through a publicly funded program targeting their recruitment. Her fight to hold her trainers accountable has put a spotlight on a work culture that trucking experts say remains pervasive, even as women, people of color and LGBTQ drivers have made up an increasing share of the trucking workforce in recent decades. 

“None of what you’ve said would shock anyone in the trucking industry,” said Anne Balay, a labor historian, former trucker, and author of two books on the experiences of LGBTQ workers in steelwork and trucking. “The only thing that would shock anyone was somebody thinking that that was a problem.”

Women make up just 7% of the labor force in the trucking industry, and research shows they report high levels of discrimination, violence and harassment. Training programs are frequently where the harassment begins, according to a 2022 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study of crime prevention for truckers.

Derks’ lawsuit asks for relief under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits gender and sex discrimination in educational settings. She’s seeking $500,000 and has also called for the school to replace its instructors. 

Chemeketa Community College has denied many of Derks’ claims and argued that she failed to seek help while she was a student. The school is still offering the grant that funded her tuition and received another $250,000 in additional grant money in 2024, even after Derks said she raised her concerns with the campus human resources office and tried to do so with people involved in the state grant program. Matthew Chappell’s employment at Chemeketa ended in 2023, but Patrick Chappell, her lead instructor, is still employed by the college. He declined an interview, referring InvestigateWest to campus spokespeople. Matthew Chappell did not respond to requests for comment.

Derks, however, said her experience at Chemeketa made her deeply hesitant to pursue a career in trucking. Those doubts kept her from seeking employment for another year and a half.  But not wanting her license to go to waste, she began work in January with an Arizona-based company that she praised for high safety standards and professionalism.

“The values and standards are so high and they put such an emphasis on integrity and fairness,” Derks said. “It’s just a polar opposite of the experience I went through.”

Unequal treatment, safety concerns

Chemeketa’s commercial drivers license program is four weeks long. In that time, students are supposed to accumulate 160 hours of instruction and supervised drive time, per federal guidelines. Chemeketa started its program in 2019, paused it during the pandemic and resumed in 2022 with the help of the state grant money. 

As Derks tells it, red flags started popping up on the first day. The instructors spent the class giving a “crash course” in what to expect from the career, she said. That was when the warnings about women, Mexican and Middle Eastern people began, she said. 

Derks provided InvestigateWest copies of text messages that she sent herself and voice memos that she recorded as she drove home from class during April 2023. She said she used both the texts and memos to document and process what she was experiencing. In the hours of recordings, Derks recounts various negative interactions with the instructors, including concerns about safety and the quality of training in addition to discrimination.

On a couple of instances, she said she was singled out. Matthew Chappell told her he wouldn’t let her have sex with him for a better grade, her lawsuit claims. Derks said he also told the class that she failed to pass a mandatory urine analysis, which wasn’t true, according to a copy of the analysis she provided to InvestigateWest, and that she was gay, which she had only disclosed on her application to the grant program.

“There’s egregious gender discrimination,” Derks said in a voice memo from the second week of class. “Some of the things they’re doing are shocking. I haven’t faced this. I worked in a male-dominated hospitality industry, and back in the ’90s, holy heck, I don’t recall it ever being as straightforward as this.”

Balay, the labor organizer and historian, said the treatment Derks described aligns with issues she’s heard about and experienced herself in the industry: not just discrimination and harassment, but sexual violence. Many people employed in the industry, such as immigrants and trans women, are not in a position to complain without risking job loss or worse, she said. 

“A lot of women that I know of who are truckers turned to trucking from homelessness and the sex trade, some of them turned to trucking from incarceration episodes,” she said. “So whatever the trucking industry does to them, they endure.” 

In court filings, Chemeketa’s attorney has denied the interactions Derks described with her instructors. Matthew Chappell’s employment, however, ended later in 2023. He did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment. The school declined to confirm the nature of his departure.

Derks said she resolved to finish the class but wondered whom she could alert about what she was experiencing. 

“I knew in the first … 15 minutes, actually, that this was a shit show,” she said. “Still, I just wanted to put my head down and get my license.” 

Wrong doors only

Derks said she didn’t know where to turn at Chemeketa.

She said she tried to raise her concerns about the instruction quality and discriminatory comments with Patrick Chappell, the lead instructor; he referred her to the dean overseeing the trucking program, not the Title IX office. The dean visited the class but did not speak with her. 

In April 2023, Derks said she called the school’s main line and asked to be transferred to the human resources office twice. She said she spoke with someone both times, but never heard back. 

She also told two career coaches she was assigned as a grantee about the discriminatory comments and behaviors she had experienced. Derks provided copies of emails with one of those coaches referencing her complaints. But it’s unclear if her coaches passed on her complaints to the manager tasked with handling student claims of discrimination at Willamette Workforce Partnership, which administers the grant that funded Derks’ and other students’ tuition. The manager told InvestigateWest that she was never made aware of any complaints by a student in the program.

Derks said she didn’t know that the problems she was experiencing in class were considered Title IX issues until she approached a lawyer a few months after her course ended. No one she spoke to from her grant program or the school had told her about the Title IX officer.

Under Title IX, schools are required to make information about the law available and accessible to students so they know where to turn for help if they experience sexual harassment, discrimination or assault.

Chemeketa said it fulfills this requirement, pointing to a link at the bottom of its website called “complaints and concerns” that sends you to a page with information about how to contact the Title IX officer. Chemeketa leaders also said students’ syllabi contain information on discrimination, harassment and Title IX, and that it posts flyers with similar information in bathrooms around campus.

Sandi Hodgin, a California-based attorney and expert on Title IX, said websites, brochures and flyers constitute the minimum that schools can do to meet the requirements of the law. What can make more difference is providing training for all staff that ensures students are steered right no matter who they approach.

“Some campuses have an open door policy, where some might say, ‘There’s no wrong door,’” Hodgin said. “You can go anywhere and people will figure out where you’re supposed to go.”

Derks’ class, however, had no syllabus. And rather than being in a classroom, most of her instruction time was on the road, giving fewer opportunities to view the on-campus flyers and brochures.

The difficulties she faced mirrors problems documented in the industry. That same study from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration noted that human resources departments in trucking companies provide little accountability or follow-up for women drivers who complain. Many complainants fear retaliation for reporting harassment or assault.

“When you file a Title IX complaint, the assumption is that you will be protected from retaliation,” Balay said. “This is naive in any context, but in an at-will work setting, you know your job is forfeit as soon as you do anything like that.”

Derks also reached out to other agencies, including the DMV and to try to get clarity on the training issues she was seeing, including the limited drive time. The instructors canceled class multiple times and encouraged students to take the drivers test early. 

But sometimes, her frustration with her instructor made finishing up early sound appealing to her, too.

“Maybe I’ll propose that they let me test early,” she said in a voice memo recorded during the third week of her class. “Because I can’t be on a truck with him. I can’t. I have to figure this out.”

A thin safety net

Today, Derks’ lawsuit may be near its end. 

Her lawyer walked away from her case in November — Derks said they disagreed about how to handle mediation with the school. She has until April to secure new representation. While Chemeketa said it plans to file for dismissal of the case as soon as Derks gets another lawyer, she said she’s determined to keep up the fight.

“All anyone at (Chemeketa) had to do was look with their eyes,” she said. “They never did. Or they did know, and they ignored what they saw. Instead of blaming me, the one who had to endure the misogyny and discrimination, the only real question that should be asked of Chemeketa is, ‘How in the world did you not know what was happening in full view on your campus lots? How did you not know?’”

In order to violate Title IX, the harassment alleged by a student must be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive” enough to disrupt a student’s access to educational opportunities and benefits.

Derks said Chemeketa has pointed to her having secured her commercial drivers license as proof that she didn’t experience that level of disruption. A spokesperson also said what Derks and her attorney provided in discovery hasn’t supported the claims she has made.

Derks said it’s not that simple.

“I may have passed based on driving skills, but emotionally and mentally, you’re in this place of why would I want to go into a career where I’m not welcome?” she said. “It was a punch in the face, and it really changed how I viewed the industry as a whole and locally.”

InvestigateWest (investigatewest.org) is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Reporter Kaylee Tornay covers labor, youth and health care issues. Reach her at 503-877-4108, [email protected] or on X @ka_tornay.