-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: NEW DATE:Alicia Dabney Interview,Sunday 9:30 AM, November 22, 2015
From: Lesa Donnelly <lesa@snowcrest.net>
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2015, 12:19 PM
To: LawrLCL@aol.com,rncott1@aol.com,valerie_jarrett@who.eop.gov,katherine_y._branch@who.eop.gov,kevin_s._lewis@who.eop.gov,shasti_conrad@who.eop.gov,kbranch@who.eop.gov
CC: bsimelton@aol.com,hoshelton@naacpnet.org,hola_5@hotmail.com,kim._alston@judiciary-dem.senate.gov,kim.betz@mail.house.gov,krysta.harden@osec.usda.gov,keenan.keller@mail.house.gov,lisa.shelton@mail.house.gov,jenel.george@mail.house.gov,tom.ttidwell@fs.fed.us,tomd@whistleblower.org,mmatz@ofwlaw.com,nichole.francis@mail.house.gov,kathleen.sengstock@mail.house.gov,brad.benton@mail.house.gov,lepstein8@gmail.com,myee@cpp.edu,ward.tj7@gmail.com,nofearcoalition@gmail.com,andrew_brandt@grassley.senate.gov,angusfarms@hotmail.com,j.hendricks@mail.house.gov,floinc3@bellsouth.net,michaelstovallfarms@gmail.com,mccray.michael@gmail.com,leslift@aol.com,molly.cortez@yahoo.com,ttidwell@fs.fed.us
Lawrence and Ron -
Yes, we have been trying to work with Secretary Vilsack since 2009 to address the pervasive civil rights abuses that are happening under his watch - to include egregious incidents of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and other work place against women in the Forest Service, particularly firefighters. He as been unresponsive. Just recently I had another report from two women (Sequoia National Forest, where Alicia Dabney was harassed) that were sexually harassed and endured workplace violence from male firefighters; reported it; and then were retaliated against in multiple ways, including management directing the Forest Law Enforcement Officer to bring his drug sniffing dog into their barracks (without the legally required warrant) to search their room and possessions for drugs. These outrageous incidents keep occurring with no resolution and no accountability. They too, are willing to speak with a reporter. Larry Lee, who sent his suicide note to Secretary Vilsack before his attempted suicide naming Forest Supervisor Jody Cook Noiron (who we've been naming as a repeat offender for years) as the harasser is also ready to speak with the reporter. It seems that is all we can do...
Yes, we have been trying to work with Secretary Vilsack since 2009 to address the pervasive civil rights abuses that are happening under his watch - to include egregious incidents of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and other work place against women in the Forest Service, particularly firefighters. He as been unresponsive. Just recently I had another report from two women (Sequoia National Forest, where Alicia Dabney was harassed) that were sexually harassed and endured workplace violence from male firefighters; reported it; and then were retaliated against in multiple ways, including management directing the Forest Law Enforcement Officer to bring his drug sniffing dog into their barracks (without the legally required warrant) to search their room and possessions for drugs. These outrageous incidents keep occurring with no resolution and no accountability. They too, are willing to speak with a reporter. Larry Lee, who sent his suicide note to Secretary Vilsack before his attempted suicide naming Forest Supervisor Jody Cook Noiron (who we've been naming as a repeat offender for years) as the harasser is also ready to speak with the reporter. It seems that is all we can do...
On 11/20/15 9:02 AM, LawrLCL@aol.com wrote:
ron:very well said ron. however, this administration has been out to lunch as related to all the abuse going in and around usda civil rights. yes, they and a host of other so called civil rights spokespersons have spoken with "fork tongues".yes, we will keep trying but doing nothing in washington is habit forming....congress members, as well. usda civil rights needs to be put in "receivership". yes, completely taken over by a totally independent body.with all due respect,lawrence lucasOur greatest civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once said:
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
In a message dated 11/20/2015 9:36:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rncott1@aol.com writes:And to think that this White House after touting how much is cares about women has done all it canto ignore her and this and other issues at USDA. The Coalition has been very gracious in its efforts to work with this White House. We thought that the first African American (Black) President would be more than willing to work with us to make USDA a model employer for the Federal Government. That has not been the case.The Civil Rights problems can be resolved. It takes commitment, courage, and action, from the leadership. That means the President and his entire staff. Under prior Presidents- Bill Clinton, for example, there were significant accomplishments that help many farmers and employees. Even the Republicans, during their time in office did some measurable good in the area of Civil Rights and we know they don't like "Black Folks"--- Yeah I said it.There is still time for this Administration and this President to leave a real legacy of real Civil Rightsclean up at USDA. There is still time to change course and work us and do what needs to be done.Ron CottonPresident, USDA Coalition301-525-2992-----Original Message-----
From: LawrLCL <LawrLCL@aol.com>
To: valerie_jarrett <valerie_jarrett@who.eop.gov>; katherine_y._branch <katherine_y._branch@who.eop.gov>; kevin_s._lewis <kevin_s._lewis@who.eop.gov>; shasti_conrad <shasti_conrad@who.eop.gov>; kbranch <kbranch@who.eop.gov>
Cc: bsimelton <bsimelton@aol.com>; hoshelton <hoshelton@naacpnet.org>; hola_5 <hola_5@hotmail.com>; kim._alston <kim._alston@judiciary-dem.senate.gov>; kim.betz <kim.betz@mail.house.gov>; krysta.harden <krysta.harden@osec.usda.gov>; keenan.keller <keenan.keller@mail.house.gov>; lisa.shelton <lisa.shelton@mail.house.gov>; jenel.george <jenel.george@mail.house.gov>; tom.ttidwell <tom.ttidwell@fs.fed.us>; tomd <tomd@whistleblower.org>; mmatz <mmatz@ofwlaw.com>; nichole.francis <nichole.francis@mail.house.gov>; kathleen.sengstock <kathleen.sengstock@mail.house.gov>; brad.benton <brad.benton@mail.house.gov>; lesa <lesa@snowcrest.net>; rncott1 <rncott1@aol.com>; lepstein8 <lepstein8@gmail.com>; myee <myee@cpp.edu>; ward.tj7 <ward.tj7@gmail.com>; nofearcoalition <nofearcoalition@gmail.com>; andrew_brandt <andrew_brandt@grassley.senate.gov>; angusfarms <angusfarms@hotmail.com>; j.hendricks <j.hendricks@mail.house.gov>; floinc3 <floinc3@bellsouth.net>; michaelstovallfarms <michaelstovallfarms@gmail.com>
Sent: Fri, Nov 20, 2015 8:59 am
Subject: NEW DATE:Alicia Dabney Interview,Sunday 9:30 AM, November 22, 2015
she is too brave to give in or give up."and the band plays on" in washington. yes, sexism, racism and other wide spread abuses continue at the us department of agriculture (usda), during the obama administration.civil and human rights groups have abandoned minority farmers, especially, Black farmers, and suffering usda employees......shameful.l. lucas
Subj: Alicia Dabney Interview....Sunday 9:30 AM,22 November 2015
Alicia Dabney's interview on USDA, Forest Service War on Women - civil rights abuses: Broadcast is scheduled for 0630 Pacific Time/0930 Eastern Time on Sunday, Nov. 22nd. If you don't have a TV affiliate in your area, you can watch livestream at FullMeasure.news. Spread the word...
-------- Forward
All,Unless there is another big terrorism development, God forbid, Alicia's piece (with a guest appearance by Michael) should air this coming Sunday. Replays and livestream always at FullMeasure.news 9:30a EST Sunday. Thank you for your patience.<Sunday.jpg>
Sharyl AttkissonFull Measure with Sharyl Attkisson202-684-0038
<Sunday.jpg>
"Investigative Reporting has a Fearless New Home
<PromoFoxNews-DabneyInterview.doc>Full Measure: Female firefighter battles federal workplace discrimination
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH 2015WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Alicia Dabney's account of alleged workplace discrimination sounds like something out of the last century. But the biggest surprise is it didn't happen in private business, but inside a federal agency that is supposed to be setting the standard for fair treatment."I was really lost and upset at what I had did, and the fact that I had committed a crime and, you know, what I had done to my family," Dabney said.Dabney's crime was welfare fraud. At the time, she was a young mother of three living on an Indian reservation and caring for her husband, who'd been seriously injured in a suicide attempt. When she went back to work, she got caught collecting welfare she was no longer entitled to. She pleaded guilty and focused on a plan to pay the money back."I said, 'Firefighters, they work hard. They make good money and I've always wanted to be one, so I'm gonna go sign up and just push through it.'"So in 2010, at age 27, Dabney landed her dream job as a firefighter with the Forest Service under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Working fires in New Mexico, Dabney was prepared for life or death situations. But she was unprepared for the hostility she faced back at the station in California's Region 5--covering 20 million acres in the Pacific Southwest.Dabney: There was three females. And then, within a month, one had quit. And then, within two or three months, one was ran out for filing a sexual harassment claim. And then, pretty soon, it was only me. So then they, you know, started torturing me. This frat boy attitude and the bullying and being humiliated, being called fat, also being called a whore and it just drove me up the wall. I couldn't take it.Attkisson: Do you think they were trying to be playful when they would call you these names?Dabney: No, it's part of the culture.Dabney didn't know it then, but Region 5, the Forest Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, all had sordid histories of civil rights violations and discrimination dating back decades. Corrective actions ordered over the years didn't prevent Dabney from getting singled out, she says, as a Mexican-Native American and a woman.Dabney: One of my captains was forcing me to tell him when I started my menstrual periods.Attkisson: How did you report this? What did you do?Dabney: Every month, when I would start my menstrual cycle, I would go in there, and I would cover my face with my hands and just say, you know, "I started my period," and be humiliated.Attkisson: Why do you think he was doing that?Dabney: I don't know his motives other than I just think he's sick to be honest.Dabney lodged multiple Equal Employment Opportunity claims and complained to the Inspector General and Office of Special Counsel. For example, she alleged that on the road, she was forced to urinate in view of her male colleagues, that they got opportunities she was denied, and that a supervisor once sat and bounced on her neck when she was bent over. She says the offenders were sometimes disciplined, but not fired, and the bullying got worse. In early 2011, Dabney attended a firefighter training conference where phone numbers were given out on a list."In the middle of the night, I get a phone call," she said.Dabney saved the recorded message:"Alicia, it's me. So what you doin', baby girl? My (expletive) is half-stacked, I'm ready to go (ha ha). I'm in a room 203 (ha ha). I'm totally ready to (expletive) hang out, baby girl. Just give me a call back. I hope you're all wet like I am, baby girl.""You could hear a ton of guys laughing in the background, so it's some type of 'ha ha ha.' I don't know. It's not like this guy liked me and wanted to hang out with me. He was trying to humiliate me, of course," she said.Michael McCray experienced the culture at USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, firsthand.Attkisson: When you hear Alicia Dabney's story, what's your take on her case?McCray: The management infrastructure of USDA is such that it encourages this kind of frat boy, this atmosphere.A manager there in the 1990s, he exposed fraud worth millions of tax dollars in a program for poor communities."Forged checks, some really outrageous stuff that we wound up going to the OIG, the Inspector General. We even notified the President's initiative on race trying to get 'em some help," he said.Instead of help, McCray says he got targeted for being a minority who also blew the whistle and lost his job. In 1995, he began filing a series of discrimination and retaliation claims, which by law must be investigated within 6 months.Attkisson: What was the outcome of your complaints?McCray: My complaints have never been processed to completion.Attkisson: From 1990s?McCray: From 1990s. I had testimony, corroboration, (and) documentation. I had a case that shouldn't have taken 20 minutes that has taken 20 years.Attkisson: How big is this problem of longstanding backlogs on civil rights complaints?McCray: It's huge. It's tremendous.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, at his confirmation hearing in 2009, acknowledged there were 3,000 languishing civil rights claims at USDA and promised to change the culture."Among the most intractable challenges facing the new Secretary of Agriculture is the intolerable and inexcusable state of civil rights in USDA's agricultural programs and for USDA employees," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)."Discrimination in any form will not be tolerated in this Department," responded Vilsack in the hearing.But two years after that testimony, Dabney says her situation was tolerated. A Coalition of Minority Employees provided Vilsack with accounts from Dabney and other women and minorities. They even tried writing Mrs. Vilsack, Mrs. Obama and Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett hoping the women might be moved to act. The Coalition says administration officials engaged and promised to help, but the abuses continued.Just a few months later came what Dabney says was her lowest point with the Forest Service. In August of 2011, she was attending a training conference when she says a supervisor asked to borrow some work supplies at the hotel.Dabney: So I knock on the door, and he opens it. And he just grabs me in a chokehold and then flings me on the bed. And I'm literally just scared. I didn't know what was he was doin'. And he starts to say, "Alicia, let's just cuddle. Let's you know, let's hang out. Let's be together." And I was like, "I don't, no you're my boss. Please don't do this right now." And he just kept getting tighter and tighter. And I just, you know, started saying, "Please, like please don't do this to me right now." And so I had to talk him down, reminding him, like, "you're my boss. You don't wanna do this to me right now. Please let go of me." And so when I started crying, then he finally, you know, let go of me.She says she reported the incident to her supervisor and multiple investigative bodies, but suffered more reprisal. It turns out the problems with discrimination complaints go to high levels of the Department of Agriculture. That's according to a recent investigation by a federal watchdog agency, the Office of Special Counsel. It found hundreds of claims filed against senior managers in the very division that's supposed to enforce civil rights laws: the Department of Agriculture Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. What's more, from 2010 to 2013, "81% of complaints filed against USDA senior managers were not acted on in a timely manner."The USDA told us it has since fixed that particular problem. The Obama administration denied our interview requests. A spokesman said the agency inherited serious issues and "over the past six years, we have corrected past errors, learned from mistakes, and charted a stronger path for the future where all Americans are treated with dignity and respect."McCray, who is an attorney, has filed a class action suit on behalf of the 3,000 people whose discrimination claims remained unprocessed in 2009.McCray: There's no accountability, even in cases where you know, discrimination has been proven. If you're a manager, you don't even have to pay for your defense, because it's going to be the agency's attorneys. They're gonna be your attorneys.Attkisson: And if there are any fines?McCray: The Justice Department pays.Attkisson: Well, the taxpayers pay.McCray: Well absolutely, so from the manager's point of view, there's no cost to them. There's zero accountability.As for Dabney, the Department of Agriculture admitted no fault but paid her a confidential settlement that included the alleged hotel assault, with the condition she never work there again.McCray: I think it's especially corrosive for someone like Alicia Dabney, who was on a front line in harm's way. I mean, it's bad enough if you're on a desk job. But if you're getting, you know, if people are playing with you and you're out fighting fires, your equipment, they're not responding, I mean, you could die.Dabney: I don't know how to get justice other than letting America know, letting people know, this has happened to me, but it doesn't have to continue to happen to others.Dabney has repaid the money she stole in the welfare fraud years ago, and a judge wiped the conviction from her record. Today, she still lives on the Indian reservation with her husband and three children and is unemployed."Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson" airs on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations on Sunday mornings. Click here for specific air times in your region. Follow "Full Measure" on Twitter (@FullMeasureNews).
