Government

Justice Department Is Just As Terrible At Handling Sexual Harassment As Everybody Else

New report says the DOJ has a 'systemic' problem.

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It’s not surprising. If we’ve learned one thing in post-Weinstein America, it’s that men in every industry sexually harass women in every industry. “Not all men,” I guess, but more than enough to cover “nearly all women.”

So it’s not surprising that it happens at the Department of Justice too. It’s not surprising that men there have been abusing their positions. And it’s not surprising that the DOJ has piss-poor procedures for handling complaints and removing threats.

It is, however, extremely depressing.

File this under “a wizard should know better.” From the Washington Post:

The Justice Department has “systemic” problems in how it handles sexual harassment complaints, with those found to have acted improperly often not receiving appropriate punishment, and the issue requires “high level action,” according to the department’s inspector general.

Justice supervisors have mishandled complaints, the IG said, and some perpetrators were given little discipline or even later rewarded with bonuses or performance awards. At the same time, the number of allegations of sexual misconduct has been increasing over the past five years and the complaints have involved senior Justice Department officials across the country.

The report was FOIA’d by the Washington Post.

The study by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz detailed all of the usual, sordid behavior these things turn up. And, depressingly, all of the usual lack of punishment for perpetrators of sexual misconduct.

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In his report, the IG wrote that a senior, supervisory attorney in the Office of Immigration Litigation, Victor Lawrence, groped the breasts and buttocks of two female trial attorneys and made sexually charged comments to them at an office happy hour.

The IG noted that Lawrence received no suspension or loss in pay or grade. The deciding official in the Civil Division said a suspension “would unnecessarily deprive the government of [his] litigating services,” according to the report.

“I was terrified I was going to get in the elevator and he would be in there,” said a woman who was involved in one of the groping incidents.”

Sure, women are afraid to get in the elevator at work because of this guy, but damn, his “litigating services.” Where ever would DOJ be able to find another litigator?

This isn’t a Trump story; the Justice Department’s failures span administrations. Systemic sexual harassment has no ideology. But Horowitz apparently sent a memo about these finds to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein in May. Granted, May was a different time when men apparently assumed that their unevolved behavior over the past 5,000 years was still okay. But still, the report was sent during the age of Trump.

Rosenstein’s statement at the time strikingly misses the point:

“It is fortunate that there are relatively few substantiated incidents of sexual harassment, but even one incident is too many,” Rosenstein said in a statement at the time.

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There are relatively few “substantiated incidents” because the Justice Department does a freaking awful job at substantiating claims. It’s not FORTUNE, it’s a pattern of SYSTEMIC ABUSE.

If the DOJ can’t figure out how to bring… justice to their own employees, how can it enforce sexual harassment regulations across the government and the public sphere?

The answer, of course, is that it can’t. Right now, I think we’d settle for getting a Justice Department that wanted to take sexual harassment seriously. I doubt that will happen under the sexual predator in chief and his Confederate minion running the DOJ, but that’s where it has to start.

Inspector general says mishandling of sexual harassment complaints at Justice Department is a ‘systemic’ problem [The Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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