GovernmentExecutive.com

A group of activists behind a 2002 law aimed at curbing discrimination in the federal workplace is back on Capitol Hill asking for stronger penalties.

The group -- called the No Fear 7 -- is made up of seven federal employees and supporters who experienced discrimination in various government agencies and brought the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act into being.

Matthew Fogg, a U.S. marshal, said his colleagues abandoned him on a stakeout after he claimed racial discrimination among their ranks. Blair Hayes, a procurement adviser at the Health and Human Services Department, has won four Equal Employment Opportunity cases against the department. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, won a $600,000 verdict in a race and sex discrimination suit against EPA in 2000.

Fogg, Hayes, Coleman-Adebayo and the rest of the group gathered in the House's Cannon office building Wednesday to announce their campaign for a tougher follow-on to the No FEAR Act, including criminal penalties for managers who discriminate.

Rep. Al Wynn, D-Md., who represents more than 70,000 federal employees in his district, said he would herald the new bill. He said one of the intents of the original law, to make sure anti-discrimination verdicts are paid directly out of agency budgets as a deterrent, isn't having the effect he had hoped.

"Agencies have not paid what they're obligated to pay," Wynn said. "The bill needs more teeth."

Coleman-Adebayo said the new bill also will call for an independent organization to train government employees on diversity and the No FEAR Act's requirements, as opposed to, as she put it, "the managers or potential defendants who are part of the problem."

Anti-discrimination activists harshly criticized the Office of Personnel Management when it published draft regulations in January implementing a portion of the existing No FEAR law. The No FEAR coalition was angry that OPM proposed allowing federal managers to orally reprimand those who have violated the law, instead of requiring written disciplinary actions or firings.

Coleman-Adebayo said she is in talks with several lawmakers from both political parties to introduce the new bill.

COMMENTS

• Ms.K.Rutzick I must commend you on your article on discrimination in the Federal work place. I am in a work place where the GS-14&15 folks that runs this DCMA is exactly the way you described,They are uneducated,untrained and they get away with Murder, and they have the workers(a lot of Degreed people)are afraid for their jobs and careers, it is really BAD here! Just look at EEO case #YS-07-0072,and 0011 retaliations, it can help prove your point. thank you! Luther D. Stanton Posted August 4, 2008 9:16 AM
• Discrimination is a huge problem within the federal system. I have seen it firsthand working for Indian Affairs. Those who are discriminated against are fearful of filing with the EEO due to reprisals, harassment, and other career-enders. The EEO office is fearful of pushing the law because they will be brow beaten. I have witnessed mostly coming from those who have never set foot in a formal education course and bring their blue collar rhetoric and attitudes with them. We have people at the GS-15 step 10 level hired right off the streets at that level who have never earned any credentials but yet are put in charge of an entire office such as the CIO office. Therein lies the problem...you get what you hire. GovExec.com reader Posted February 11, 2007 9:07 PM
• The last poster who talked about thin-skinned, whiney, etc., employees obviously never came across the ole' boys network in the Defense Department. Either that or he/she is obviously one of the "good people." Dis-gruntled GovExec.com reader Posted January 2, 2007 4:41 PM