The headquarters of U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. Interior houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

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Hearing focuses on sexual harassment at the Department of the Interior

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

By Acee Agoyo

• WEBCAST: Oversight Hearing - Sexual Harassment at the Department of the Interior

The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is holding oversight hearing on sexual harassment at the Department of the Interior.

A landmark internal study from December 2017 found that employees at the Bureau of Indian Affairs reported the highest rates of all forms of harassment within Interior. The entity with the second highest rates was the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians. Both agencies are staffed primarily by American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Since the release of the report, officials at Interior have adopted a "zero tolerance" policy toward misconduct. "No employee should ever fear coming to work because of harassment," Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney said during her confirmation hearing for the job in 2018.

No one from the BIA, however, is slated to testify at the hearing, which takes place on Wednesday morning. No one is representing OST either. Conditions at both agencies appear to be conducive to harassment, according to Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources, of which the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is a part.

"At least five of 12 risk factors that predispose a workplace to sexual harassment are present at DOI and its bureaus," the committee wrote in an #InteriorToo report last year. "The risk factors include employing a disproportionate number of men, power disparities between women and men, and geographic isolation. The risk factors can be eliminated or managed."

Results from the Department of the Interior's Workplace Environment Study show high rates of harassment at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians. Source: DOI Topline Results

Men in positions of power at the BIA are among the alleged offenders. The director of the Southwest regional office was investigated for repeatedly harassing women for nearly a decade, according to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at Interior. The male official was allowed to retire from his job in New Mexico before the report came out.

"All I wanna do is get you naked and show you what it’s like to be with a real man," the official reportedly told one woman who was harassed.

Another high-ranking male at a Bureau of Indian Education institution was investigated for sexual misconduct and harassment as well after women employees and even students came forward. The official -- said to be a vice president at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute -- was placed on leave but was allowed to continue collection his salary. The BIA has consistently refused to answer questions about his employment status.

“She’s fat, she’s ugly, she’s old." the official said of a female employee who made allegations against him, according to the investigation conducted by the OIG.

Harassment at the BIA crosses gender lines too. The president of Haskell Indian Nations University, a BIE institution in Kansas, was removed from her post earlier this year after being accused of fostering an "abusive" environment on campus. Though she was assigned to another government position, she was allowed to remain on school grounds.

"She has negatively affected peoples' lives and for her to remain on campus, to me that tells me the BIA really isn't that interested in solving problems," former Haskell student Aaron Circle Bear, a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe who participated in the OIG's investigation, told Indianz.Com in March. He said he was forced to leave school as a result of the intimidating behaviors -- he now works in law enforcement in Kansas.

The problem even reached the top of the BIA. The former director of the agency, who was hand picked for the job by the Trump administration, mysteriously disappeared from his Washington, D.C.-based job after a female subordinate accused him of harassing her in a hallway at Interior. The department has refused to explain what happened to him after he was the subject of an OIG investigation too.

"It is really disconcerting to see the news reports that you just had this individual resign, step down, be fired," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said during Sweeney's confirmation hearing last year, "but then further to learn that you had investigations going on that speak to a widespread -- allegedly widespread -- harassment problems with the Bureau of Indian Affairs."