Racism in government

I thought I would share a question from a friend:

I am a US citizen, an immigrant, and a federal employee. If my boss told me to go home to my birth country and fix things there before I speak out about reforms in my agency’s work, would that be OK? Or if the chief of the forest service said those words, or Sunny Perdue said those words – would there be consequences for them? Or is this sort of speech OK in the workplace?

Maybe some agency heads will answer it for us?

Top lawmakers probe Forest Service sexual harassment complaints: from E&E News

When I read this, I wondered why the OIG was publishing a report in Feb. 2019 about cases from FY 2014-2017.  (I think FY 2017 ended on Sept. 30 2017?).  I thought the major new efforts to combat harassment were started around when Chief Christiansen came on board in October 2018.  Wouldn’t a useful audit answer the question “how are these new approaches to solving the problem working? Again, if anyone can explain why OIG is studying this far in the past, I’d appreciate it. Here’s the link.

Democratic lawmakers in the House today demanded a meeting with Forest Service and Agriculture Department officials to discuss an agency watchdog’s report that outlined shortcomings in the service’s response to sexual harassment complaints.

In some cases, former supervisors in the Pacific Southwest Region didn’t report employees’ prior records of sexual harassment to hiring officials, allowing those employees to be selected for supervisory positions in other locations, USDA’s Office of the Inspector General said in a Monday report.

In other cases, management officials didn’t report incidents of sexual harassment within the 24 hours required by the agency and weren’t disciplined for failing to meet the requirement, the OIG said.

“Given the number of complaints of harassment and retaliation we continue to receive from current and former Forest Service employees, we are deeply concerned about the Forest Service’s commitment to addressing these failures,” Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said in a news release.

“This is an urgent matter and a top priority for us this Congress. We will ask the Inspector General and the Forest Service to brief us on these new findings,” they said in a statement. “We will also ask the Inspector General to review the entire agency’s processes for addressing sexual harassment and misconduct.”

Grijalva is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Cummings is chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Speier chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

The OIG reported that its investigators reviewed 11 substantiated cases in the Pacific Southwest Region from fiscal 2013 to 2017 and found two, and likely a third, situations in which former supervisors did not inform Forest Service hiring officials about employees’ prior histories.

Forest Service staffers have been reluctant to share information on employees due to privacy concerns, the OIG said. But the watchdog agency suggested policy changes. A Forest Service manager told the OIG that supervisors could glean more information through the questions they ask employees applying for jobs, an approach the OIG agreed with, according to the report.

The details of such questioning, however, remain to be determined. The Forest Service said it has concerns about the legal boundaries for questions about past conduct and would consult with the USDA Office of the General Counsel.

The report said the Forest Service “should provide additional training and guidance regarding all supervisors’ responsibility to provide accurate and reliable information during reference checks. Asking more specifically about current or former employees’ prior history regarding serious misconduct provides greater assurance that the supervisor providing the reference will be more forthcoming about this kind of information.”

Investigators also reviewed 125 complaints of sexual harassment from 2014 to 2017 and found that 18 weren’t reported by managers or supervisors within the 24 hours required. In 13 of those cases, no action was taken against managers or supervisors who didn’t meet the requirement, the OIG said.

“This occurred because FS supervisors and managers did not appear to fully understand the 24-hour reporting requirement, and FS lacked specific guidelines on disciplinary actions to take when addressing untimely reporting,” the report said.

In other cases, the report added, employees found to have engaged in harassment were subjected to penalties less severe than outlined in agency guidance, without documented justification.

The Forest Service generally agreed with the OIG’s findings and said it would complete new, related training for hiring managers by June 1.

Two Stories on the Forest Service Oversight Hearings on Sexual Harassment

Here is the coverage from Government Executive: Two points first, Gov Exec reporting.

While training in fire-fighting, she was called a ***** and was told she would have to ***** to keep her job, she said. Male supervisors threatened to “bend me over and spank me,” she testified. She was tripped, pushed and kicked.

When Reed left the National Park Service operations at the Grand Canyon in 2015 to transfer to the Forest Service, “little did I know I was going from the frying pan to the fire,” she said. Men told her she was “unwelcome as a female” and “seen as a sex object” who had “no right to the job.”

Some of the worst quotes in the NPR story here actually were from the Park Service part of her testimony, based on what GovExec reported. Not that the FS is any better.. but.. for accuracy.

What I thought was interesting about this Gov Exec reporting is that they added the context of the Park Service to the story about the House heaing. The FS (Christiansen and Vela) have what appears to be variants of the same problem (and other Interior agencies may, and since Ms. Reed’s worst stories have to do with fire, and fire is interagency) doesn’t it make sense for these agencies to work together or try the same things, or consciously try different things and compare? It sounds like they are all independent efforts. Could this be a problem?

“Changing a culture is a multi-pronged effort,” Christiansen said, adding that any large organization has a population of mostly good people but some “who don’t do the right thing.” She said she “would like to say [we could do] it in six months, but with an agency that’s 112 years old with a mission of getting a critical job done in remote locations—[it won’t be done] overnight.”

Reed, who identified herself as one of the 34 women, said her case of being fired after retaliation has not been closed. She said the new Forest Service remedies “have no real application in reducing sexual harassment.” The process is a “failure and a waste of money” that “has not made a safe environment for reporting sexual harassment,” she added. She still knows women who are being forced to have sex with their supervisors, Reed said.

On the Senate side, Raymond David Vela, a 28-year career Park Service employee whom Trump nominated to head the agency in August, told the Energy and Natural Resources panel that his agency “had made great strides” but in some ways had still “fallen short” in creating “a workplace that treats them with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Vela called harassment “a scourge” for the service and society. “We will continue to hold people accountable,” he said. “We’re in a better place, with better reporting, subject-matter experts and a defined process.” But he said he was still learning what “takes place in the field, where we haven’t had adequate reporting and protocols.” The NPS is “not quite there yet on accountability,” Vela said. “Every leader in the Park Service must own this,” and it will be used in their performance evaluation process.

NPR’s headline was Forest Service Chief says “it will take longer than any of us want.” I think that that’s a true statement. What was missing from the NPR story IMHO was any context of other efforts by other kinds of agencies.

Just for reference, let’s look at the military’s annual report on assault, not harassment.

Out of those 2,218 cases in which commanders had evidence to take action, 1,446 received action on at least one sexual assault charge; 774, or 54 percent, of the 1,446 cases were entered into the court-martial process, while the remaining cases received adverse administrative actions or discharges (378 cases) or were administered nonjudicial punishment (294 cases). The remaining 772 cases had no evidence of a sexual assault crime, but resulted in disciplinary action on some other form of misconduct discovered during the course of the sexual assault investigation, such as physical assault, making a false official statement or underage drinking.

House Oversight Hearing Tomorrow (Nov. 15, 2018) on Forest Service Misconduct and Retaliation


Here’s the link. If anyone wants to watch and report, please comment below.

There was a radio show with Shannon Reed, Lesa Donnelly and Lawrence Lucas on Blog Talk Radio. The link is here. I think it was Lesa that said some pretty derogatory things about the Chief and other women leaders in the FS (to my mind, uncalled-for). It does give you insight into what some of the players will say in a less formal environment than an Oversight Hearing.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will receive an update this week on the Forest Service’s response to a history of sexual misconduct in the agency, as complaints about officials’ response continue to surface.

Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen is among the witnesses scheduled to testify Thursday. Since taking charge of the Forest Service in March, she has put a new reporting system in place and vowed to change the workplace culture — but reports of harassment and retaliation against those who report it have persisted, according to Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

The hearing follows a letter Gowdy wrote to the Department of Agriculture — which oversees the Forest Service — on Oct. 22, requesting documents and information related to sexual misconduct and the agency’s response. He had asked the department to comply by Nov. 5.

News reports this year have shed light on a long history of harassment and similar behavior within the agency, especially in firefighting crews. The scandal reached the top of the agency earlier this year, when Forest Service Chief Tony Tooke resigned amid reports about a romantic relationship he had a decade earlier with a lower-ranking agency employee, when he was a forest supervisor.

Christiansen has overseen the development of a new system to confidentially report incidents, as well as mandatory anti-harassment training for employees. USDA’s Office of the Inspector General has been looking into the issues, and Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong is scheduled to testify.

But a group of current and former Forest Service employees complained in a Nov. 9 letter to Christiansen and lawmakers that the department’s efforts have fallen flat and that officials haven’t responded to letters from the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees outlining many incidents.

“We women continue to be discriminated against, harassed, endured sexual and physical abuse, and experienced retaliation,” they wrote, asking for a meeting with Christiansen. “The Coalition had no choice but to seek congressional hearings and contact news media, radio media and television media to expose the serious issues of discrimination, harassment, and workplace violence against female employees.”

Retaliation against employees, including denial of training and fire assignments, and false disciplinary charges, has occurred since March, when Christiansen became interim chief after Tooke resigned, they said.

The current and former employees also asked to be included in meetings with USDA and the Forest Service “to collaborate on problem solving,” and they predicted that some of the signers of the letter will be “illegally fired.”

Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, Nov. 15, at 10 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn.

Witnesses:

Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen.
Phyllis Fong, USDA inspector general.
Shannon Reed, air quality specialist and former employee, Forest Service.

Does anyone have a copy of the Nov. 9 letter to Christiansen? Please email to me or attach in comments.

More Than 1,500 Interior Employees Removed or Reprimanded for Harassment, Misconduct

My question is “I wonder if similar numbers for the Forest Service are available?”. This is from the Hill, here.

The Interior Department fired, suspended or reprimanded more than 1,500 employees for harassment or misconduct between 2017 and 2018, according to an internal email obtained by The Hill.

The actions are part of the department’s yearlong effort to enforce greater accountability, Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt told employees in a staff-wide email Wednesday.

The email, sent with the subject line “A Situational Update,” informed staff that new changes to address workplace concerns included developing action plans to curtail inappropriate behavior and expanding an ethics program within the agency.

“From day one, [Interior] Secretary [Ryan] Zinke and I have been committed to leaving the Department in better shape than we found it; this includes addressing employee misconduct and harassment and improving our ethics program,” Bernhardt wrote in the email.

In April, the department released its first comprehensive policy on the Prevention and Elimination of Harassing Conduct.

Bernhardt, in the email, urged staff to continue to come forward with any concerns.

“Despite these efforts, we can only take action when we are aware of misconduct or unethical behavior. For this to happen, employees have to be willing to come forward. I want you to know that your leadership is listening, and we are committed to holding individuals accountable when they have failed in their duties and obligations,” he wrote….

Last December a survey conducted by the Interior Department found that 35 percent of its workers were either harassed or discriminated against at work in the previous 12 months.

When such harassment was reported, the survey found, no action was taken or the individuals were encouraged to drop the issue about 40 percent of the time.

Earlier in October, Interior announced a plan to fight rampant sexual harassment within the National Park Service. Nearly 40 percent of Park Service employees reported having been harassed in some way in the previous 12 months, according to the agency.

“All employees have the right to work in an environment that is safe and harassment-free. I’ve removed a number of people who were abusive or acted improperly that other administrations were too afraid to or just turned a blind eye to. Under my leadership we’re going to hold people accountable,” Zinke said in a statement at the time.

Retaliation or Not? The Shannon Reed Case

A special thanks to Michael Volpe for this article.

Here’s his bio:
Since 2010, Michael Volpe has dedicated himself to exposing the wrongdoing of the powerful as a freelance investigative journalist. In 2012, Michael was keynote speaker for the Eugene V. Katz Award at the Center for Immigration Studies. His 2013 expose of Rosilyn Wells, who was an Affordable Care Act navigator despite an arrest warrant, made national headlines. His series of articles on the Memphis VA Medical Center in 2014 and 2015 were featured on the O’Reilly Factor and helped lead to the dismissal of the hospital’s director. Since late 2013, he’s focused on corruption in the family court system. He was the only journalist to examine Judge Lisa Gorcyca’s —notorious for the Tsimhoni case—other cases, exposing three other cases with similar lack of due process. His books include “Prosecutors Gone Wild: the Inside Story of the Trial of Chuck Panici, John Gliottoni and Louise Marshall; “The Definitive Dossier of PTSD in Whistleblowers”; and “Bullied to Death: Chris Mackney’s Kafkaesque Divorce.”

Here’s the story:
This is a story from freelance writer Michael Volpe.

A Female US Forest Service … by on Scribd

Thanks also to Michael for teaching me about Scribd.

As I read through the story, I had a couple of thoughts.

1. People might not trust internal investigations. But who would you trust? Random contractors? A panel of female retirees? A panel from another federal agency? Something adversarial with appointed reps for each side, but who would judge?

2. For sexual harassment charges by someone against a supervisor, whether they are true, or not, or a cascading series of misunderstandings, it seems to me to be an irreparable rent in fabric the supervisor-employee relationship (think of a custody battle). It seems kind of macho management to insist/allow them to stay together. What good could come of it?

Finally, I’d be really interested in what current employees think of this quote from Lesa Donnelly.

She said that since Tooke was forced to retire the USFS has increased retaliation.
“Washington Office officials were publicly embarrassed and they’re angry at us, exemplified by – refusal to address complaints of harassment; HART inquiries performed on the women after they report harassment; trumped up charges of misconduct and poor performance; suspensions and removals – it has all increased. I’ve had as many contacts from women since March as I had when I filed the women’s class complaint in 1995.” Donnelley said.

Have you experienced or seen this in your workplace? Also, current employees could help by explaining what a HART complaint is and/or sharing a link with the current process.

Noelle Selin on Harassment and Science: Et Tu AAAS?

There are three reasons I think harassment and discrimination in the science biz is worthy of our attention:
(1) Our public lands/environment/forest community is full of land managers, interest groups and scientists. Whether we like it or not, and whether we like each other or not, we are all a part of the same policy community. And our professional lives go back and forth in terms of employment, as we shall see in a later post. So, in a sense, what hurts any of us, hurts all of us. It’s just plain wrong, anywhere and everywhere.

(2) The flip side of this is that if anyone in the community has figured out how to stop it, others could adopt those practices.

(3) Scientists claim privilege for their views, based on framing the problem a certain way, and writing papers based on data collection and analysis as legitimized by other scientists. If they are only another Good Ole Boy network that sets about studying problems that GOB’s think are important, using disciplinary approaches picked by GOBs, and so on, then they may not be addressing the problems of the day with the diversity of thinking and approaches that we would, and should, expect from publicly funded research.

Noelle Selin writes about good old boyism, harassment and diversity in Scientific American in this blog post “Why I Confronted the American Association for the Advancement of Science” (my italics):

When many people I consider mentors and scientific leaders recently spoke publicly to honor an accomplished academic who had engaged in harassing behavior, I felt as if they were speaking directly to me. I asked myself whether they knew that the collegiality they heralded on the part of the honoree was not open to all. Did they choose to overlook how he interacted with certain women, judging this insignificant compared with his contributions? Did they realize that their praise communicated not only to those whom his actions had most severely harmed, but also to many others, that his accomplishments were more important than their participation in science?

It wasn’t any single case, though, that prompted me to initiate this public letter. Though I’ve never before spoken out publicly about sexual and gender harassment, and I rarely sign on to public letters—let alone write them—I took a leadership role in this effort for two main reasons.

First, the pervasiveness of harassment as a systemic problem in science means that efforts by all of us are needed to address it. Its impacts are not limited to the cases garnering the most public attention. Even for those who are not the direct target of the most severe harassment, our professional interactions, choices and career paths can be shaped by it. Personally, I feel these impacts when I modify my own behavior to try to avoid being the target of a known harasser; when I think about whom to sit with at meetings or social gatherings to avoid degrading or sexualized conversations; or when I hear comments suggesting my gender affects my competence and potential.

By remaining silent, all of us, especially those in positions of authority, contribute to perpetuating these harms. I contributed myself by not speaking up to tell my colleagues how I felt when hearing their accolades. Every time we fail to call out inappropriate behavior, we are tacitly accepting its systemic burdens. As a tenured faculty member, I do not want to have to teach the next generation how to evade or put up with harassment as a strategy for scientific survival.

The second reason is that I increasingly see a strong link between the inclusiveness of the scientific community and the academic issues I commit my career to and often speak publicly about: the need to engage with stakeholders to address large-scale societal challenges. Doing impactful science in my own work on air pollution, climate change and sustainability requires engaging with communities and decision makers as part of the process. Public engagement is our core mission as part of the Leshner Fellows program, and we are specifically asked to train and mentor other scientists and promote engagement within our institutions. As scientists, we are much better equipped to engage if our community actively welcomes diverse participants, ideas and perspectives.

You can support their effort here.

NBC Interviewees’ Suggestions for Improving Sexual Harassment…and Yours!

A kind reader provided a list of the suggestions of the interviewees in the NBC show (see post here), and we can use this thread to discuss them and provide our own. I also believe in the power of openly sharing stories and ideas, so if you would like to do that in a post format, please email me.

The below two paragraphs are just about assault, not the many other bullying things people do.
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On Sunday, Father Bob gave a homily about the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis. He went into some detail about whom he thought should be on the review team..laypeople, women and so on, including law enforcement, inside and outside the Church. Later I was reading a story in the Forward here from 1913 in Poland, in which girls were abused in the woods and at Hebrew school and the teacher was arrested, apparently the rabbi reported it. Over one hundred years ago, people knew what to do, so the question continues to be “why aren’t people doing it.
When I think of assault, as some of the people (and Melody) described, I wonder why women don’t report it to the police. If the FS way is “that’s not the way we do it here, we do our own internal investigations” well, I can see an easily solved problem right there. Stop recriminations against people who report and discourage supervisors from not reporting what happens to their employees. And by reporting, I mean local law enforcement.

I also think that we can think about the bishops that are now in trouble for not reporting and passing abusers around. I know that has happened in the FS, at least in the 80’s, with women and children. The RC’s are going back in time to figure that out. I’m not recommending that (going back in time and firing people), but just drawing some similarities. Large organizations, (mostly) run by men, people are stuck with each other for their lives when it’s not easy to move away, and so have a variety of probably similar passive-aggressive power and gossip games they play. It strikes me that universities and the military probably have some of the same issues. I don’t say that to be negative, but just to say that there is a large body of organizations that need to figure this out, not just the Forest Service, or other fire agencies, so there’s a lot of horsepower that could be tapped.
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Anyway, here are the suggestions from the show to address the broader problems:

*Recruiting the right women – giving them the opportunities – not about the numbers – that won’t work
*No woman alone on crews – especially young women – needs to be more support
*all woman crews
*peer to peer – how we support one another – we make up the culture – how to make a difference – (have the uncomfortable conversation)

And some other suggestions from readers:

short term

*immediately get any woman out of any location for any reason – no questions asked – placed in a safe location

*certify locations as safe for women

*no men and woman alone – always a third person – (youth protection training in Catholic Church – Boy Scouts)

*don’t follow the rules to get rid of the problems – pay them off to leave if rules broken

long term

*check out who we are hiring before we hire them – interviews – reference checks – then check them out in the first year probationary period – get rid of those with even minor violations

I don’t exactly how fire crews work anymore, but if individuals have a bad group dynamic going on (such as the insubordination discussed in the interviews) can they be broken up and individuals sent to other crews? In my experience, if people are inclined to bully, and sneaky enough, and knowledgeable about the rules enough, they can be a negative force together, even with the best new supervisor.. keeping just at the edge of the reportable line, but not a good workplace for anyone. I would call this the “pack of jackals” policy. Remove jackals from the pack (individuals to different packs) until the behavior returns to acceptable.

Finally, I think for churches and the Forest Service part of the problem is that so many (90%?) employees are good folks, most people don’t (need to) develop the array of skills needed to deal with this kind of people/bullying until it’s too late. That’s why there should be a “Jackal Force” on call to help.

Choose Your Battles, Have a Thick Skin, and Stand Up for Each Other: Guest Post from Melody Mobley

Melody Mobley and her “angel pup,” RainaMelody Mobley and her “angel pup,” Raina

Melody was one of the early pioneers in the Forest Service. As a black woman, she had the worst of both worlds and still she persevered. Here are some of her experiences and lessons she learned. Thanks for posting this, Melody, and for your work with the Forest Service! Here are links to a Mountain Journal piece, and a blog post.

In 1977, I was hired by the USDA Forest Service and became the first Black female professional forester in the nation. In 1979, I was the first Black American woman to graduate in forest management from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Throughout my 28 year career with the Forest Service I was typically the first Black woman to do this or that because there were so few of us. I would like to share with you a few things I learned along the way.

First and foremost, having a strong faith in God allowed me to never give up even though there were so many times when I felt like doing just that. When I was only 20 years old, I was sexually assaulted by a colleague while in a Forest Service bunkhouse. Townspeople were already accusing me of doing inappropriate things with their husbands while I was in the woods doing my work so I chose not to confide in anyone. I knew they would not believe me. I heard many times that “black women are only good for one thing”, and they were not talking about forestry work.

In my last position with the Agency, my director said she felt physically threatened by me during our many contentious discussions. It was so similar to the story we have all heard about a woman clutching her purse on an elevator when she is alone and a Black male enters. I remember administering a timber sale contract and having the contractor say they were “working like niggers” when I casually asked how things were going, and having my colleagues, whom I supervised, laugh. It was during these times, when I was at my lowest, that my relationship with God kept me going. I sincerely believed that “God does not make junk,” that I would never truly be alone, and “if God is with us, who can succeed against us.”

Another thing I learned that truly served me well was choosing my battles and having “thick skin.” I made sure that I was the best and the brightest. I was hired because I was a Black female. I was retained and promoted because my work was exemplary. I knew my science and was articulate. I did not like wearing uncomfortable, unattractive uniforms every day but I did it to gain some level of credibility. I did not like moving around the nation about every 1 ½ years and being isolated in towns with populations as low as 100 people, but I knew that being knowledgeable about a wide range of ecoregions would give me knowledge that many of my colleagues did not possess. I knew that as a lower level, entry level employee I had little power or influence within the Agency; but years later national program manager, I knew that I could successfully file credible formal complaints. It took many years but along the way I developed patience, another one of God’s virtues.

In what we may consider the worst situations there is always good. I had to spend a lot of my career living in tiny towns but they were in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. And, in communities where everyone knew and depended on everyone else, I made some of the strongest imaginable friendships: Kathee Kiefer in Skykomish, Washington; Wilda Vanderboegh in Mt. Hebron, California; James Hart in Eustis, Florida. These are the things that truly matter.

I learned that skin color does not always determine like-mindedness or friendships. In 1996, when I had finally reached my limit in tolerating discrimination based on my race, gender, and age and filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint, it was my Black brothers and sisters who were afraid to be seen with or associate with me in public because of the stigma associated with filing complaints and the retaliation and reprisal that comes with it. I understood, but it taught me a valuable lesson I have never forgotten. My real friends stood with me, and they were predominantly White. One could say that they could afford to stand with me because they generally had higher grade levels within the Agency and more power and authority. They could withstand most retribution. But, they chose to support me and even helped protect me from some of the punishment that would come my way for speaking out against discrimination.

After filing my complaint, I was passed over for promotion opportunities, my daily work assignments were whittled down to nothing leaving me struggling to find ways to contribute to the mission, the Deputy Chief responsible for International programs and other Agency leaders publicly chastised me for filing a complaint and “wasting the Agency’s money,” I was physically assaulted by two colleagues on separate occasions while those employees were rewarded with promotions and commendations, and on and on and on. These were the things I endured from 1996, when I first filed a complaint, until I retired on disability in 2005. My doctors certified that 80 percent of my disability is directly attributable to the discrimination, reprisal and stress I was subjected to in my work environment.

I learned a painful lesson through this, too. The Associate Deputy Chief who supervised me during a complaint received a substantial cash award that included as a criteria his performance in “civil rights.” Although I was the one who filed the complaint about discrimination and reprisal I endured, this manager was rewarded by the Agency for his accomplishments in civil rights. As I said previously, choose your battles.

I love the Forest Service and many of the people who work there. The majority are good people. And, I am grateful for the life lessons my career afforded me.
My hope in telling my story is that my actions and words will set an example for people of color and other minorities to always work at being a well-prepared professional. And, choose your battles (which are inevitable) wisely.

I hope, too, that the Whites I worked with learned from me that their prejudices against Blacks and women were unfounded.
To those who are employers or managers, I hope my story reminds them that they should never tolerate retaliation and reprisal against employees who choose to speak out about discrimination. Those employees need your protection and support in making the hard decisions to file a complaint.
And I hope that you, reading this, understand a little better that the history of the US is changing bit by bit: a story woven together with stories like mine, if we’ll only listen to them.

NBC Story on Sexual Harassment in Fire

Update: Below are the correct links for the NBC story.
Here’s the Dateline story that aired on Friday night
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/under-fire-1311215683836?v=raila

and here’s additional online content
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/stories-from-the-forest-1310933571573?v=raila
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/change-in-the-forest-1310587459615?v=raila
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/trailblazers-1310561347906?v=raila
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/dateline-friday-preview-1309893187611?v=raila

Here’s the note on it from the interim Chief

“To All Forest Service Employees,

Tonight, Dateline NBC is expected to air a segment about the Forest Service that addresses alleged incidents of sexual harassment in this agency. I want you to know that these stories are important. We should continue to learn from employees’ perspectives and reflect on our individual roles in continuing to maintain a work environment where these experiences are not possible, because who we aspire to be shows up in all of our interactions with each other.

I’ve said before, but I can’t say it enough: every single one of you, every single employee in the Forest Service, is our most valued asset in this agency. Everywhere I go, I see employees with a deep appreciation for the higher purpose that unites all of us.

As I shared with you during the recent all-hands call, my experience early in my career motivates me to be personally committed to continue to build the skills we need to succeed together in this agency. I hope you will each join me in that ongoing commitment.

We can fulfill our mission only if we have a work environment that is safe, respectful, rewarding and free from harassment and retaliation of any kind. We need to continue to find ways to bring our agency core values and our commitments to life in our workplace every day.

Our efforts have been notable. We’re learning to get better every day. We updated our anti-harassment policy, engaged an employee advisory group, and we are rolling out bystander intervention training. We have also just dedicated a senior executive, Leslie Weldon, to focus exclusively on improving our work environment. I provided a more thorough update on the status of this work during the recent employee call. If you missed it, you can read a summary and listen to the call in last week’s Leadership Corner.

I can’t thank you enough for what you do and your commitment to the mission of this agency in serving the American people. We have lots of opportunities and only together can we continue to propel this agency forward.”

Thank you,

Vicki