Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is moving swiftly to address a rising level of discrimination and sexual harassment at the National Park Service after a new report released Friday showed a 38 percent jump in harassment and discrimination at the agency.
“From day one, I made it clear that I have zero tolerance for harassment in the workplace, and I directed leadership in the National Park Service to move rapidly to improve accountability and transparency,” Secretary Zinke said.
The National Park Services Environment Survey found 10.4 percent of the service’s employees have experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months. Around 19 percent experienced harassment based on their gender, while just under 1 percent had reported experiencing sexual assault.
The study also examined instances of harassment based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, and sexual orientation. “Overall, 38.7% of employees reported experiencing some form of harassment in the last 12 months and survey results indicate many experienced some form of harassment prior to the last 12 months,” said the Interior Department on Friday.
Zinke said he has already begun to crack down on offending personnel. “I’ve removed a number of people who were abusive or acted improperly that other administrations were too afraid to or just turned a blind eye to,” he said.
“Under my leadership we’re going to hold people accountable,” he said. “We are also fixing the problem of victims being afraid of retaliation or inaction by codifying the right for victims to report abuse to any manager in any location across the Service, and by bringing on an independent, investigative partner.”
The department announced that it would be increasing its ability to investigate and address harassment complaints by increasing Employee Relations and Labor Relations staff with ten additional employees. Ethics staff will be beefed up with four additional employees to improve the park service’s “capacity to investigate and resolve allegations and incidents of harassment efficiently,” the agency said.
Policies have also been strengthened to define “more broadly what would be prohibited harassing conduct to ensure that employees can be held accountable for harassing conduct even if such behavior may not rise to the level of illegal harassment under [Equal Employment Opportunity] laws,” the agency said
The new survey showed that nearly 75 percent of employees who experienced harassment did not file a report or complaint about the behavior, according to the agency. “Of those who chose not to report, 45.9% thought nothing would be done if they filed a report or complaint, and 33% did not trust the process,” according to the Interior Department.
Nearly 50 percent of National Park Service employees participated in the study that was released on Friday. The work survey was conducted during the period between January 9 and March 5, 2017.
A second survey was conducted between July 24 and September 15, 2017. The results of that survey will be released once the analysis is completed and compiled into a final study.
