CUOMO SUBJECTED WOMEN TO A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT
In late January, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had reached an agreement with the New York Executive Chamber resolving claims that former Governor Andrew Cuomo had “engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
Noting the federal law not only prohibits employment related “discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national original,” but retaliatory conduct when objections to such misconduct are raised, the DOJ’s investigation revealed that Cuomo: “(1) subjected female employees to a sexually hostile work environment; (2) tolerated that environment and failed to correct the problem on an agency-wide basis and (3) retaliated against employees who spoke out about the harassment.”
The settlement agreement requires the implementation of the following reforms:
- Expanding the Executive Chamber’s Human Resources Department;
- Creating new policies and procedures for the external reporting, investigation and resolution of complaints involving high-level Executive Chamber employees, including the Governor;
- Developing and implementing robust training and anti-retaliation programs and
- Creating mechanisms to assess the reforms’ effectiveness on a systemic basis.
In a written statement, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, “Executive Chamber employees deserve to work without fear of sexual harassment and harsh reprisal when they oppose that harassment …. The conduct in the Executive Chamber under the former governor, the state’s most powerful elected official, was especially egregious because of the stark power differential involved and the victims’ lack of avenues to report and redress harassment. With this settlement agreement, the Executive Chamber under Governor Hochul is undertaking additional actions that will address system failures of the past while helping prevent the recurrence of systemic sexual harassment and retaliation in the future.”
All power to you!
# # #