FEDERAL WORKERS EXPOSED
Help Fight Federal Discrimination
Know of a Federal Executive or Manager who has or that is engaging in
unlawful discrimination? You can voice it here! Help Fight Federal Discrimination!!!
MS. KATHERINE A. THOMPSON, ASSISTANT DEPUTY REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR BUSINESS
SERVICES - DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, MID-PACIFIC REGION -
SACRAMENTO CALIFORNIA – FOUND GUILTY OF RACIAL AND DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION!! –
ROBINSON v. DEPT OF INTERIOR, 550-2009-00090X
Ms. Katherine A. Thompson “engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Ms. Robinson from May 2006 until she resigned in November 2007 on multiple bases. I found that Ms. Thompson regarded Ms. Robinson as a person with a disability once the complainant had serious heart surgery in February 2006. She removed her from the IT Supervisor position as soon as she returned to work to allow a younger Caucasian man to occupy the GS-13 supervisor position for
long enough to qualify for the new GS-14 IT Manager position. She refused to return Ms. Robinson to her supervisory position at the end of her bogus “detail” assignment and, instead, advertised for the Manager position. Ms. Robinson applied, but Ms. Thompson did not even consider her for an interview. The parties subsequently reached a settlement, thus a full Decision was not issued.” The settlement reached was $250,000 plus!!!!
Moral of the story, if you work for the Bureau of Reclamation Mid Pacific Region… if you are a minority - do not get sick, suffer from a disability, or have family members who are chronically ill – because you will be treated as subhuman and executive management all the way up to the BOR Commissioner and Secretary of the Interior will see it and ignore it. Heck even our elected Congressman knew and ignored this one. Our tax dollars at work.
Ms. Thompson’s expressed reason for not assign Mr. Rosenberger to the detail was that she was concerned he did not take the project seriously. This view of Mr. Rosenberger’s judgement and dedication to BOR work simply cannot be reconciled with Ms. Thompson’s subsequent decision to select Mr. Rosenberger for the GS-14 IT Manager position without even considering Ms. Robinson for her former job.
I find that Ms. Thompson removed Ms. Robinson from the IT Supervisor position and placed her on the detail which she extended four times to give Mr. Rosenberger the time in grade as a GS-13 to qualify for the GS-14 IT Manager position. After compelling the complainant to take the detail for which Ms. Robinson said she did not have the necessary skills, an assessment with which Ms. Thompson appeared to agree based on her 2005 performance appraisal of Ms. Robinson a few months earlier, Thompson then routinely criticized the complainant’s work, gave her conflicting instructions, and relegated her to a series of isolated and unsuitable offices. She then used the complainant’s purportedly poor performance as the basis for disqualifying her from consideration for the IT Manager position, first announced before Ms. Robinson gave notice that she would retire and abruptly cancelled.
Ms. Thompson’s sustained criticisms of the complainant’s work on the detail and the impact of the assignments and treatment on her physical and mental condition predictably led to Ms. Robinson’s decision to retire.
I find and conclude that Ms. Thompson engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Ms. Robinson from May 2006 until she resigned in November 2007. She regarded Ms. Robinson as a person with a disability once the complainant had serious heart surgery in February 2006, removing her from the IT Supervisor position as soon as she returned to work. Ms. Thompson specifically expressed “significant concern” in a 2007 interim performance review that Ms. Robinson’s medical condition was interfering with her ability to travel and perform her
duties. In fact, Ms. Robinson’s medical condition further deteriorated as a consequence of the detail assignment and the treatment to which she was subjected by Ms. Thompson. Ms. Thompson also was motivated by Ms. Robinson’s color, race, age, and/or sex when she removed her from the IT Supervisor position and placed her on the extended detail so that she could place Mr. Rosenberger into a GS-13 level position.
I find and conclude that Ms. Thompson did not consider Ms. Robinson for the GS-14 IT Manager
position because of her color, race, age, sex and/or because she regarded her as disabled. She engineered Ms. Robinson’s removal from the IT supervisor job so that a young, Caucasian man who did not have a disabling medical condition could hold a GS-13 position for long enough to qualify for the GS-14 Manager position. Ms. Thompson’s reasons for declining to interview Ms. Robinson for the upgraded version of her old job, including that she did not indicate that she had project management experience, are not worthy of belief and are a pretext for discriminatory
motive.
3. Remedies and Relief
Injunctive Relief: To make Ms. Robinson whole, the agency shall reconstruct the hiring process for the GS-14 IT Manager position so that the complainant is interviewed for the job and given fair consideration. In light of my finding that Ms. Thompson subjected her to discrimination by placing her on the detail and by her treatment of Ms. Robinson during the detail, the complainant’s work performance after May 2006 when she was placed on the detail
should not be considered in assessing her qualifications for the job. [1]
Compensatory Damages: The damages witnesses approved for the complainant--Dr. Hillary Campbell, Tom Robinson, and Louie Cretaro –presumably will provide additional evidence of the complainant’s emotional and physical pain and suffering. At this point, considering only the evidence provided by the complainant and the witnesses who already have testified, I would award a minimum of $60,000 in non-pecuniary compensatory damages.
Jeanne M. L. Player
Administrative Judge
SERVICES - DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, MID-PACIFIC REGION -
SACRAMENTO CALIFORNIA – FOUND GUILTY OF RACIAL AND DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION!! –
ROBINSON v. DEPT OF INTERIOR, 550-2009-00090X
Ms. Katherine A. Thompson “engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Ms. Robinson from May 2006 until she resigned in November 2007 on multiple bases. I found that Ms. Thompson regarded Ms. Robinson as a person with a disability once the complainant had serious heart surgery in February 2006. She removed her from the IT Supervisor position as soon as she returned to work to allow a younger Caucasian man to occupy the GS-13 supervisor position for
long enough to qualify for the new GS-14 IT Manager position. She refused to return Ms. Robinson to her supervisory position at the end of her bogus “detail” assignment and, instead, advertised for the Manager position. Ms. Robinson applied, but Ms. Thompson did not even consider her for an interview. The parties subsequently reached a settlement, thus a full Decision was not issued.” The settlement reached was $250,000 plus!!!!
Moral of the story, if you work for the Bureau of Reclamation Mid Pacific Region… if you are a minority - do not get sick, suffer from a disability, or have family members who are chronically ill – because you will be treated as subhuman and executive management all the way up to the BOR Commissioner and Secretary of the Interior will see it and ignore it. Heck even our elected Congressman knew and ignored this one. Our tax dollars at work.
Ms. Thompson’s expressed reason for not assign Mr. Rosenberger to the detail was that she was concerned he did not take the project seriously. This view of Mr. Rosenberger’s judgement and dedication to BOR work simply cannot be reconciled with Ms. Thompson’s subsequent decision to select Mr. Rosenberger for the GS-14 IT Manager position without even considering Ms. Robinson for her former job.
I find that Ms. Thompson removed Ms. Robinson from the IT Supervisor position and placed her on the detail which she extended four times to give Mr. Rosenberger the time in grade as a GS-13 to qualify for the GS-14 IT Manager position. After compelling the complainant to take the detail for which Ms. Robinson said she did not have the necessary skills, an assessment with which Ms. Thompson appeared to agree based on her 2005 performance appraisal of Ms. Robinson a few months earlier, Thompson then routinely criticized the complainant’s work, gave her conflicting instructions, and relegated her to a series of isolated and unsuitable offices. She then used the complainant’s purportedly poor performance as the basis for disqualifying her from consideration for the IT Manager position, first announced before Ms. Robinson gave notice that she would retire and abruptly cancelled.
Ms. Thompson’s sustained criticisms of the complainant’s work on the detail and the impact of the assignments and treatment on her physical and mental condition predictably led to Ms. Robinson’s decision to retire.
I find and conclude that Ms. Thompson engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Ms. Robinson from May 2006 until she resigned in November 2007. She regarded Ms. Robinson as a person with a disability once the complainant had serious heart surgery in February 2006, removing her from the IT Supervisor position as soon as she returned to work. Ms. Thompson specifically expressed “significant concern” in a 2007 interim performance review that Ms. Robinson’s medical condition was interfering with her ability to travel and perform her
duties. In fact, Ms. Robinson’s medical condition further deteriorated as a consequence of the detail assignment and the treatment to which she was subjected by Ms. Thompson. Ms. Thompson also was motivated by Ms. Robinson’s color, race, age, and/or sex when she removed her from the IT Supervisor position and placed her on the extended detail so that she could place Mr. Rosenberger into a GS-13 level position.
I find and conclude that Ms. Thompson did not consider Ms. Robinson for the GS-14 IT Manager
position because of her color, race, age, sex and/or because she regarded her as disabled. She engineered Ms. Robinson’s removal from the IT supervisor job so that a young, Caucasian man who did not have a disabling medical condition could hold a GS-13 position for long enough to qualify for the GS-14 Manager position. Ms. Thompson’s reasons for declining to interview Ms. Robinson for the upgraded version of her old job, including that she did not indicate that she had project management experience, are not worthy of belief and are a pretext for discriminatory
motive.
3. Remedies and Relief
Injunctive Relief: To make Ms. Robinson whole, the agency shall reconstruct the hiring process for the GS-14 IT Manager position so that the complainant is interviewed for the job and given fair consideration. In light of my finding that Ms. Thompson subjected her to discrimination by placing her on the detail and by her treatment of Ms. Robinson during the detail, the complainant’s work performance after May 2006 when she was placed on the detail
should not be considered in assessing her qualifications for the job. [1]
Compensatory Damages: The damages witnesses approved for the complainant--Dr. Hillary Campbell, Tom Robinson, and Louie Cretaro –presumably will provide additional evidence of the complainant’s emotional and physical pain and suffering. At this point, considering only the evidence provided by the complainant and the witnesses who already have testified, I would award a minimum of $60,000 in non-pecuniary compensatory damages.
Jeanne M. L. Player
Administrative Judge
