May 27, 2002
Toward a Fair Federal Workplace
By MARSHA COLEMAN-ADEBAYO
ASHINGTON
On May 15, President Bush signed the first civil rights law of the 21st century. The No Fear Act (for Notification and Federal Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation) will change the way the government operates. Managers in federal agencies found guilty of discrimination will no longer find it easy to avoid responsibility for their actions, and their agencies will have to pay for the consequences of their conduct.
The new law will make it less likely that the kind of workplace discrimination and harassment I endured at the Environmental Protection Agency — and over which I successfully sued — will go unnoticed and unpunished. As I testified before the House Science Committee while advocating for this law, federal employees should not have to work in a culture of fear and intimidation. The threat of reprisal, including loss of their jobs, prevents them from reporting abuses. Intolerance may prevent them from performing at their most effective level.
My troubles were most intense when I served as the E.P.A. liaison for the environment on the Gore-Mbeki Commission, a Clinton administration foreign policy program with South Africa. After I reported that an American company was poisoning its African workers and their families with toxic waste, I was relieved of my responsibilities on the commission, my efforts to conduct an investigation were stifled and I was made a target of personal abuse. Racial epithets were hurled at me by senior officials; I was denied a promotion, supposedly because I made the choice to become pregnant; and I received threatening phone calls at home.
When I filed a discrimination complaint with the E.P.A.'s civil rights office, my situation grew worse. I sued, and in August 2000 a federal jury found the E.P.A. guilty of discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. It awarded me $600,000 in damages. It was my case that moved Congress to take up the No Fear bill.
Thousands of federal employees are working under the daily stress of discrimination. In 2000, female and nonwhite federal employees made nearly 25,000 complaints against the federal government. Settlements and judgments cost the federal government tens of millions a year, but total expenditures have been hard to calculate and there has been little Congressional oversight. There is no accountability because most judgments were paid from a general government judgment fund without penalty to the agency at fault.
The No Fear Act will force federal agencies to pay all settlements and judgments for discrimination from their own budgets. It contains reporting requirements that will help determine whether a pattern of misconduct exists within an agency and whether that agency is taking action to address it. It requires that employees and managers be notified of their rights and responsibilities. And it strengthens protections for whistleblowers, who are often forced to choose between remaining silent about a dangerous or illegal situation and risking their careers by telling the truth.
The House and the Senate unanimously passed the No Fear Act. It was sponsored in the House by F. James Sensenbrenner, the conservative chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Sheila Jackson Lee, a liberal Democrat. In the Senate, John Warner took the lead on the bill. This bipartisan support shows that both political parties recognize the need to root out discrimination in the federal government and that they can come together to protect the rights of minorities and women.
The No Fear Act will serve society by making it possible for federal employees to raise red flags when they see misconduct. The government should be a leader in protecting employee rights, and the new law will push it in that direction.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo works in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances of the Environmental Protection Agency and is chairwoman of the No Fear Institute.
Various Media
- Federal EEO Advisor Publications
President signs NO FEAR Act into law
WASHINGTON (May 15) -- Federal agencies will now be required to pay for discrimination and harassment settlements out of their own pockets and to post equal employment opportunity complaint data on their Web sites. The efforts of civil rights activists and lawmakers to hold government agencies accountable for EEO violations paid off today as President Bush signed the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act, H.R. 169 into law. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called the bill "an important piece of civil rights legislation" that "increases government accountability."
In addition to the payment and disclosure requirements, the No FEAR Act requires agencies to inform employees about their EEO and whistleblower protection rights. [See related story]
Joseph Lopes, a legislative representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, said the bill's passage ensures federal managers are
held accountable for discriminatory practices. "Agencies do not have a lot of discretionary funding so I could see some scathing memos and discipline resulting when directors and budget staff have to go searching to replace money that was paid to cover illegal actions committed by managers," he told cyberFEDS®. "It won't take long to see an impact with the pressure the bill envisions."
In addition, Lopes said, the reporting requirement would force agencies to take a hard look at their EEO programs. "We certainly need to get a grip on the EEO process and identifying baseline data is a good start," he said.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., introduced the bill after Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a former internal relations specialist for the Environmental Protection Agency, testified before the House Science Committee on the discrimination and hostile work environment she faced at the EPA. A jury awarded her $600,000 in August 2000, but the judgment was eventually reduced to $300,000, the maximum amount allowed in the federal sector. [See related story]
"The No Fear Act is necessitated out of years of verbal and psychological abuse, pain and suffering in silence, lonely tears shed in stairwells, self-doubt, declining health and even premature deaths from stress-related illnesses," Adebayo told the committee. "For so long, the weathered voices of federal employees who have been discriminated against because of race, sex, disability and differences of opinion have been disregarded or worse." In a statement today, Sensenbrenner said discrimination and retaliation in the federal government will no longer be "swept under the rug." "By holding accountable those who insist upon discriminating against others, the federal government will become a role model for civil rights -- and not civil rights violations," he said.
Filed: May 15, 2002
Civil rights advocates cautiously laud No FEAR passage
By Drew Long, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (May 16) -- The enactment of the No FEAR Act has been a long time coming, according to civil rights advocates who have championed the legislation since it was initially proposed almost two years ago.
"Until yesterday, federal employees were essentially without civil rights," said Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a major inspiration for the bill and a member of the No FEAR Coalition. Coleman-Adebayo and the NAACP's Leroy Warren, joined sponsor Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., at a small White House signing ceremony Wednesday. [See related story]
During the bill's final vote in the House, Sensenbrenner said that if it were not for Coleman-Adebayo's congressional testimony and the legwork of the NAACP Federal Sector Task Force, the bill would not have been drafted. Warren, who chairs the task force, said the credit belongs to Sensenbrenner.
Although the task force spent hundreds of hours working on the legislation, "without Sensenbrenner and his staff this bill would not have been possible," Warren said.
In August 2000, Coleman-Adebayo was awarded $600,000 by a jury in an EEO judgment against the Environmental Protection Agency. [See related story]
She discussed her situation with the task force and Sensenbrenner, who chaired the House Science Committee at the time. "Two years ago I was testifying before a jury," Coleman-Adebayo told cyberFEDS®. "Yesterday I was at the White House for the No FEAR Act." Although antidiscrimination laws have been in place since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, Warren said agencies were not held accountable for violations.
"It's going to be up to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to write some regulations to ensure the bill does what it's supposed to do," Warren told cyberFEDS®. "It also needs enforcement authority."
Coleman-Adebayo said the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act's equal employment opportunity disclosure and monetary provisions bridge the gap between the Civil Rights
Act's protections and the necessary enforcement mechanisms. Under H.R. 169, agencies are required to post current EEO data on their Web sites and to provide the information to Congress annually. "One of the problems we've had with these agencies is the reporting," Warren said. "Now the question is when do they start lying." The other primary provision requires agencies that settle or lose discrimination cases in federal court to reimburse the Judgement Fund for any money paid on their behalf out of their own budgets.
Coleman-Adebayo said both provisions are equally important, but the "bottom line to many of these agencies is how much money goes in and out of their coffers." Not only will the reimbursement provision tap agencies' budgets, it could force agency heads to seek additional funds from Congress. An agency head who appeared before Congress two or three times a year for funding might not keep the job for long, Coleman-Adebayo said. However, Coleman-Adebayo conceded that if employees do not embrace the new law and ensure their managers and supervisors are complying, then "it's just going to be another bill signed by the president."
Filed: May 16, 2002
