Agencies lack reliable data on discrimination cases

The government does not have a clear idea of the number of discrimination and retaliation cases that involve federal employees, an official from the General Accounting Office said Wednesday. The complex federal redress system together with the patchwork of different reporting procedures used by government agencies are largely to blame for the confusion, said J. Christopher Mihm, director of strategic issues at GAO, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on discrimination in the government. "Data on the number of discrimination and whistleblower reprisal cases are not readily available to form a clear and reliable picture of overall case activity," Mihm said. Discrimination and whistleblower cases involving federal employees are handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel. Wednesday's hearing focused on proposed legislation aimed at shielding federal workers from discrimination and retaliation in the workplace. The proposed Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination Act (No FEAR), H.R. 169, would also make the government more accountable when it comes to reporting discrimination complaints in federal agencies. The bill requires agencies that lose or settle discrimination and whistleblower cases to pay judgments out of their budgets. Currently, such payments are made out of a general federal judgment fund.

Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who reintroduced the No FEAR bill in January, said that although the bill is not a panacea for eliminating discrimination in federal agencies, it is an important first step. Sensenbrenner said allegations of rampant discrimination at the Environmental Protection Agency prompted him to introduce the bill last October. Under No FEAR, agencies must also notify employees of discrimination and whistleblower protection laws and file annual reports with Congress and the Justice Department on their discrimination cases. The reports would include the number of discrimination or whistleblower cases filed at the agency, how the cases were resolved, the total paid to settle cases and the number of agency employees disciplined for discrimination or harassment. Bobby L. Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said he supported the bill, but suggested amending it slightly so that agencies required to pay employees in discrimination and retaliation cases are prohibited from taking the money from employees' salary and expense accounts. "Unless a legislative firewall is designed to prevent anti-discrimination payment reimbursement out of salaries and expense accounts, agencies may be tempted to use those resources to make the payment this bill will require," Harnage said. Participants at the hearing discussed the effects of discrimination in federal agencies on employees and the public in general. Aside from being morally reprehensible, discrimination in federal agencies also endangers the safety of Americans, said Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, an EPA senior manager who won a $600,000 race and sex discrimination suit against the agency last August. "By retaliating against me, EPA managers put the public at risk," said Coleman-Adebayo, referring to the agency's decision to reassign her, after she had filed a discrimination complaint, to a case focused on toxicology and epidemiology, areas outside her expertise. Coleman-Adebayo's background is in international relations. Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and former congressman from Maryland, said discrimination and retaliation against federal employees who speak out against discrimination has not only affected ethnic minorities, but white employees as well. "While many of these complaints are from ethnic minority federal employees, we have also heard from white males and females, who apparently have been punished by their superiors for upholding existing anti-discrimination laws and regulations," said Mfume. The NAACP established a federal sector task force in 1998 to investigate discrimination complaints in the government. Although accurate and reliable data are not available on the number of federal discrimination and retaliation cases, the existing data provide insight on caseloads and trends, Mihm said. During the 1990s, the overall number of discrimination cases in the federal government rose steadily. According to GAO, the number of discrimination cases under EEOC's jurisdiction in fiscal 2000 was 24,524-nearly 40 percent more than in fiscal 1991.