Are Covert ‘Catch & Kill’ EEO Programs from 1972 Protecting Sexual Harassers at Federal Agencies?
TGDW — CHAPTER ONE: Seeing the Big Picture — PART 1 of 2
A technical story overview for: “THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING (TGDW) — Finding Ancient Jesus in the Post-Whistleblower Era” — a dramatized story series based on real events, by Eeshan V. Melder.
[DISCLAIMER: This story is part of a dramatized series based on real events. In certain cases, events, characters and timelines have been created, changed, or removed for dramatic purposes, to allow exploration of religious beliefs and spirituality, to protect sources of information, or solely for entertainment purposes. This story is NOT legal or professional advice. It’s a story. Regarding all matters of law, career, or government policy, please consult a licensed attorney, expert or the appropriate federal agency. The U.S. government denies any and all wrongdoing.]
CBS News recently ran a story with the headline: Trump trial hears testimony from David Pecker about “catch and kill” scheme. Watching the media spectacle of President Donald Trump’s April 2024 civil case in New York, many people heard this term — and learned about the ‘catch and kill’ approach to dealing with the threat of a civil lawsuit — for the first time.
Allegedly, in President Trump’s case, damaging stories were ‘caught’ by David Pecker at the National Enquirer. Then a ‘hush money’ payment appears to have been made.
The prosecutor appears to be making the case that this was a pattern of behavior. If anyone in the orbit of Pecker got wind of a negative story, they would allegedly coordinate to get an attorney to ‘kill’ the story.
No blood involved. The only ‘killing’ is done in metaphor. A lawyer can legally negotiate an agreement on compensation. They can also get the person accepting the payment to sign a non-disclosure agreement — meaning they won’t talk about it. (My understanding is that ‘the catching and the killing’ is not really the issue in President Trump’s case. The alleged wrongdoing is around how the whole matter, and the payments, were handled as business records.)
But I’m not here to talk about President Trump. I’m a political independent, and I worked for both the Trump and Obama administration. I mention this case to seize upon the public awareness of the term — ‘catch and kill’.
‘Catch & Kill’ is an excellent way to describe how a management team, HR staff and lawyers can coordinate to respond to silence someone with a potentially damaging civil case against them — with a payment and a signed nondisclosure agreement.
This approach seems to be common practice. It’s problematic in that there is no requirement other than the risk of repeated lawsuits, to make the behavior stop. If you’re wealthy, you can afford to engage in some degree of civil rights violations if you know how to handle the litigation that may come your way.
But what if you could get the government to fund your ‘Catch & Kill’ program? I think that’s exactly what happened in 1972.
Now that America understands this ‘Catch & Kill’ concept a little better, I want to use that awareness to help make something clear. While working in the government as a federal manager, I encountered what appears to be the same thing — ‘Catch & Kill’ — implemented in a federal government program created in 1972.
It doesn’t say ‘GOVERNMENT CATCH & KILL PROGRAM’ above the door…but I think it could, and it wouldn’t be too far from the truth.
After a 1972 law, the Nixon administration and the 92nd Congress delegated new Human Resources (HR) and legal authorities to federal employers. The ability to respond in ‘catch and kill’ style to a report of an EEO violation, appears to have been cleverly designed into this program. It’s apparent to me when you look at the design of the ‘in house’ EEO Programs, run today at every agency in government under this 1972 law.
Part of this story will touch on my own encounter with these laws. As technical background to the story, CHAPTER 1 and CHAPTER 2 present a technical overview which shares my understanding of these laws and the program that it authorizes.
These chapters also share cases of apparent organized sexual misconduct in government and ask — could there be a connection to this ‘catch and kill’ style federal EEO program?
Here’s some background.
The ability to sue an employer for discrimination (racism, sexual harassment, religious etc.) came primarily from the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It didn’t come easily.
The Segregationist government had blocked integration for generations. Finally, after protests and filibusters and bombings, the Segregationist government had yielded.
When integration began, it was enforced by giving Americans the ‘civil’ right to sue. American employees could now make a public complaint, in open court, if they encountered discrimination by an employer.
Wait a minute…
What did that mean to a Congress full of legacy Segregationists? They were all still there. There was no mass resignation from government.
For them, the passage of the CRA of 1964 presented a similar threat to what Donald Trump allegedly faced before an election — the threat of a civil lawsuit, and public embarrassment.
So what did the government do? If you ask me, I think the government did the same thing Donald Trump is accused of doing — but on a much grander scale, and with horrible consequences.
In 1972, four years after the champion of civil rights, the Hon. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, Congress passed their own ‘catch and kill’ program…in my opinion.
It’s called 29 CFR Subpart A— Agency Program To Promote Equal Employment Opportunity(EEO).
It exempted federal workers from key new CRA protections. Federal employees permanently lost the right to directly make a public complaint of racism, sexual harassment, or other EEO discrimination in open court.
Instead, after 1972, federal employee victims of sexual and other EEO harassment were diverted to new, ‘in house’, Federal Sector EEO Programs, to be run at their agencies.
These programs became the mandatory — and ONLY — way for federal workers to report an EEO violation. The EEO program design appears to force a confidential, off-the-record, initial report — not a complaint — and with no EEO protections.
That first mover advantage, the ability to ‘sucker punch’ — to go hire a lawyer and surprise your employer with a public allegation of discrimination, made to an independent judge — was GONE.
Instead, these new programs force victims alleging discrimination to first make an invented thing, created by the 1972 law, called an ‘EEO Pre-Complaint’. Making an EEO Pre-Complaint means a mandatory ‘TIME OUT’ of up to 90 days, supposedly for government counseling and mediation.
During the 90 days, a victim reporting an EEO violation CANNOT file a ‘real’ Federal EEO complaint. Instead, as reported by Democracy Now and the New York Times, in ‘catch and kill’ style, the 1972 law appears to let federal agencies settle these ‘off-the-record’ EEO pre-complaints with up to $255,000 in government money (with no EEO violation recorded, no permanent records kept of any misconduct, and no requirement to hold anybody accountable).
After waiting 90 days, if there is still no resolution, a victim wishing to make a ‘real’ complaint gets just 15 days to do it.
If theydo make a ‘real’ federal EEO complaint, a victim must then wait another 180 days — for a grand total of 9 months (the 90 days ‘time out’, plus at least another 180 days)— before an outside investigation of their report of sexual harassment begins.
The flowchart that follows is from the Federal #MeToo Report (2020), by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. We’ll see it many times as we walk through the path of a federal employee reporting sexual harassment in the dramatized story told in THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING.
There is also no requirement in the 1972 law, to my knowledge, that the government take any steps to remove a victim from under the supervision of a federal manager they have reported for sexually harassing them…
This dramatized story, based on real events, shares my understanding of these rules, and shares publicly available stories of the horrific federal employee experiences with predatory sexual misconduct in government.
It explores, as backdrop to a personal story about a curse on my grandfather, the way the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Act has been implemented in government, highlighting two (2) possible loopholes in the program design.
INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW
My name is Eeshan.
I’m in my 50s now, but back when I was around 10 years old — growing up in 1970s America — I found out I was born with a blood curse.
The curse was put on my Sri Lankan attorney grandfather, in the 1930s, as revenge for his alleged involvement with abuses of law.
Shortly after being told about this blood curse, I was spirited away to an ancient Hindu temple in Sri Lanka. The temple had a white cobra living around the altar. A ritual was performed to put me under a ‘limited’ protection spell. It was limited, we were told, because the curse could not be broken. I would still have some bad things happen, but the priest who did the rituals told my mom, who paid a small fortune for all this, that they still did some things to keep me safe.
I was a kid when it all happened. But after seeing all that, and hearing about this family curse, I began to study about ancient folk beliefs, magic, myth and religion. I learned almost all ancient civilizations seem to tell the same story about what magic is, and how it works.
Same with curses. They’re throughout human history…and all over the world. Science says it’s a function of the mind — like the placebo effect — but science can’t seem to explain why the placebo effect actually works, either. They can only describe it.
My personal experience tells me there is something to be learned about this phenomenon, that science does not yet understand. I learned if you look deep enough, in the ancient texts, you will find spiritual explanations that make sense, in their way.
I think those Hindu priests did exactly what they said they would. After almost 50 years of living with both the curse, and the protection spells, I’m not sure which one frightens me more. But, let’s not get into the secrets of good and evil, and the nature of the universe, right away. We need to get acquainted first.
For now, let me start with some easier stuff. We’ll save the curse story for CHAPTER THREE…
Here’s my professional back story. It’s way more straightforward, relatively speaking…
MY PROFESSIONAL BACKSTORY
I’ve spent 25+ years working in, and around, the federal government.
I’m a lifelong political independent.
I’m also a specialist in federal operations and the design of federal programs.
After finishing grad school at the University of Southern California, way back in the 1990s, I moved home — to the Washington, D.C. area.
Bill Clinton had just become President.
Just after I left Los Angeles, the Rodney King riots happened. Now, all of that was a world away. I was back in the DC pulse. Once you live here for awhile, you start to feel the vibrations created by all the souls who come here to live, from all over the planet. There’s the internationals. You know every country has a presence here. Sometimes in more ways than one. There’s the interest groups, the influential, the influencers…and also the silencers, the sinners, the politicizers, the pedagogists.
So many, like me, end up here because of the government — in some way or another. My family moved here because of my dad’s job. He’s retired now. He was an international economist. He came to America as a dipomat from Sri Lanka. He ended up working for the World Bank. He retired after spending several years as the #2 guy at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) mission in Pyongyang, North Korea.
My return to DC was supposed to be a temporary thing, just to spend time with my parents, before dad retired. They were planning on moving to Australia. A lot of dad’s family ended up there, after the civil war began in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. He wanted to be close to his family during his retirement. And that’s what they did. As for me, the universe had other plans. I ended up staying in DC.
There was a lot of downsizing happening in corporate America, back then. I remember being in line, clutching my paper resume at job fairs, standing behind guys in their 50s.
White hair, slicked back, they all wore the same dark navy suit. Between job interviews, the jackets came off in the summer heat, almost always revealing the outline of a tank top undershirt, visibly silhouetted just beneath the fabric of a white, short sleeve, button-down collar, men’s dress shirt.
The job fair was in a big arena. Ace of Base’s (I saw) ”The Sign” was thumping over the speakers in the lounge area. I remember them looking tired and betrayed, most of these job hunters. The era of having a ‘job for life’ was ending, my dad was telling me. Some were sitting and smoking cigarettes. Some were leaning against the wall, waiting to use the payphone. Others sipped Styrofoam cups of water. Most stared down at the heavy duty gray-green carpet.
It was in that tight economy that I got my start, in my twenties, doing entry level work, supporting federal government programs.
I began my career with a Human Resources (HR) consulting firm doing work for the military. I worked on multiple programs, including one supporting squadron level training for the U.S. Air Force.
After that, I worked my way up with increasingly responsible roles, as a young management consultant, on programs across the public sector. This was in the years leading up to the dot-com boom and bubble of the 2000s. I moved into civilian government work, riding the wave of information technology flooding into the government as the internet age began.
For the next 15+ years, I worked on public sector technology consulting projects in healthcare, grants management, disaster management, and financial regulatory enforcement. By the time it was done, I was a middle-aged Service Area Manager, running two departments of a Fortune 500 IT Consulting firm.
My point?
As a management consultant, doing the volume of government program work I did, and constantly writing proposals for even MORE government program work — at other federal agencies — you eventually get to know a LOT about analyzing, and understanding, random FEDERAL PROGRAMS…
In 2007, I got divorced. I became a 50/50 single dad, and co-parent of two wonderful kids. I didn’t want to have to travel for work anymore, so I began looking for career alternatives without as much travel. In 2010, I got a break, and got a great job in the government, as a federal IT manager.
Over the next 10 years, I worked with some really amazing people. I was a Supervisory IT Program Manager, a Senior Adviser, and a Division Director, at two different departments in the government.
In 2015, after coursework and testing over 2 years, I was certified as a federal agency Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Greenbelt. LSS is the same engineering method-set used to manage industrial operations. Greenbelts, like me, are specially trained by the government to use LSS to diagnose broken federal programs and operations.
In 2019, I got one of the highest awards my agency gives for performance. My annual salary was over $200K. I was on top of the world…on paper.
The reality was quite different.
THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING series tells a dramatized story around my resignation from federal service in 2020.
My resignation came after a death threat — and a series of mysterious ‘accidents’. These accidents affected colleagues involved, as witnesses, in a pending Federal Sector EEO investigation.
I know some people in Washington, D.C. have death threats for breakfast with their coffee. I’m not one of them. Were the accidents really just coincidences? The death threat made me suspicious as hell. I began to question things I would have otherwise have taken, just on faith.
That was almost a blessing in disguise.
In this, dramatized, story, the government, as the title says, denies wrongdoing. But I’d been warned, for years, to expect that denial. There was always some story, or another, about sexual misconduct, floating around every federal agency. It was never openly discussed. As a manager, you learn to tune it out. There’s folks in charge of keeping us all safe. Right?
Right?
Behind the scenes, I heard different. Long time government colleagues warned federal employee whistleblower processes work — but only when ‘insiders’ in the government WANT them to work.
Meanwhile, as technology was making the business of government agencies easier, it was changing society in other ways as well.
The 2015 Ashley Madison data leak scandal showed how pervasive misconduct in government could get. It was revealed, as reported by The Hill and other sources, that some 15,000 government e-mail addresses were apparently in use on a website for people seeking extramarital affairs.
I had certainly seen some things, in government, before resigning…things I didn’t understand…at least not at the time…
“Federal staff had told me for years it was impossible to report sexual harassment in government — without also, then, being administratively attacked by ‘agency insiders’ who protect a culture of sexual misconduct. As a federal manager, I’d disputed them…then, I slowly began to see it for myself…”
After resigning from government in 2020, I researched what I’d seen. I’m a Public Sector Consultant. It’s what I know how to do. When in danger, in addition to prayer and meditation, that’s where I go.
I gather data.
I ended up talking to lawyers, historians, former federal managers, even descendants of lawmakers in the civil rights era. What I found led me down into a four-year rabbit hole, nosediving me into the mostly untold history of the 1972 federal worker rules for reporting discrimination. I eventually authored an Independent Illustrated Report to Congress — heavy on images and exhibits, like a graphic novel.
The report to Congress shares explanations, and evidence, suggesting the existence — and ongoing government ‘insider’ exploitation — of two (2) glaring loopholes in the federal employee sexual harassment reporting process.
This government-wide process is driven, in large part, by the 1972 Federal Sector EEO laws, which cover federal workers, who were singled out, along with independent contractors, to be exempted, by Congress, from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
A BRIEF HISTORY RECAP
In 1964, at desegregation, the right to make a public complaint of racism or other discrimination was born. It had been blocked, for generations, by Segregationists in the U.S. Congress.
After years of government obstruction — countered by civil right protest marches, led by the Hon. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and others—the end of segregation had finally come.
But there was no mass resignation from Congress. The ‘enemies’ of civil rights remained in power.
This new civil right, to make a complaint of racism against THEM, was an immediate threat to all the Segregationists, still in government, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964.
In fact, many former Segregationists remained in office well into the 1980s. When I was in high school, in the late 1980’s, Robert Byrd (D) was the leader of the Senate. Byrd was a former Exalted Cyclops of the Klu Klux Klan. He later renounced racism, but it’s my understanding he filibustered the CRA of 1964, to try to stop it from being passed.
Federal agency EEO Programs appear to force federal workers, reporting EEO violations, to first, make a 90-day, mandatory, CONFIDENTIAL, off-the-record, initial report. Invented by a 1972, Nixon-era, rule, it’s called an “EEO Pre-Complaint”. Where making a ‘real’ EEO complaint creates official records, and offers protections, an EEO Pre-Complaint creates no permanent records, and is legally meaningless. It further appears to offer no EEO protections. The 1972 law also creates a path to allow, fast-track, government money settlement payments, reportedly as high as $255,000 — to quietly erase, the very ‘real’, legal liability in these in-house, confidential, ‘off-the-record’, EEO discrimination Pre-Complaints — leaving minimal official records they happened, and no requirement the government punish anyone…
The Independent Illustrated Report to Congress I authored suggests, after the passage of the CRA of 1964, there was a move to keep the ‘old guard’ of Segregationists in government safe. How do you make sure a legacy VIP Segregationist never got one of these new EEO complaints?
Legislate it.
It’s what the Segregationists knew how to do. When in danger, that’s where they go. Old Jim Crow. The Segregationists made laws that turned justice and morality upside down. They had no qualms passing laws that declared themselves innocent of wrongdoing…laws that created pretexts to harass, or incarcerate black people, minorities or anyone else who spoke against them. It’s their thing.
The Hon. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered in 1968. Four years later, the 92nd Congress, and the Nixon administration, passed their own bipartisan, 1972 civil rights law.
This led to 29 CFR Subpart A — Subpart A — Agency Program To Promote Equal Employment Opportunity, and today’s convoluted process to make a report of an EEO violation in the federal government.
The flowchart that follows is from the Federal #MeToo Report (2020), by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. We’ll walk through it together later in THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING.
It was under these new rules, during the Nixon administration, that new EEO Programs sprang up, instantly becoming the mandatory, and ONLY place, for federal workers to report a civil rights violation — and under very different rules than the rest of America.
THE PROBLEM EMERGES
As American demographics changed, and values changed, this agency EEO Program law has remained on the books, like a sick reminder of how things used to be. And somehow, this program, which I think began like ‘training wheels’ for hardcore Segregationists, slowly morphed into something else.
Women were less than 5% of the workforce in 1964. As more women entered the workforce, in the 1970s, and divorce rates increased, sexual harassment emerged as a leading civil rights violation in the workplace.
But, because the law sees sexual harassment as EEO ‘gender discrimination’, federal workers reporting sexual harassment now found they had to use this same EEO program set up, arguably, to block black people newly able to report discrimination after the passage of the CRA of 1964.
Some saw it as an injustice. Some saw it as payback. Others saw it as an opportunity to perpetrate sexual misconduct on the job, in government.
THE LAW HAS STAYED THIS WAY — FOR MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS…
As more women joined the workforce, insiders realized they could use the ‘offender-friendly’ design of the EEO program, to rescue VIPs outed for ‘sexual harassment’. It’s all covered by the same 1972 law.
Thus, the EEO Program got protection from scrutiny.
My theory? Word got out.
Today, at some agencies, a new generation of ‘government insiders’ has taken hold of these 1972 authorities. They may be using them — not just to ‘rescue VIPs’. Instead, they may be using them to enable their own organized sexual misconduct, to corrupt public officials, and defraud agency EEO programs out cash settlements for ‘disability retaliation’ — that never actually happened.
My report to Congress alleges the existence of two critical program design vulnerabilities, or “loopholes”, in the Federal EEO Program. They are as follows.
LOOPHOLE #1 — appears designed into the program rules. It creates a ‘fail safe’ exit for an outed, alleged, harasser. It allows them to resign or retire with no consequences within 90 days of being reported for EEO violations.
I’ll explain how it’s done in this CHAPTER, and again, in detail, later in this dramatized story. It uses the forced, 90-day mediation or counseling period — when the federal worker is legally barred from making a ‘real’ EEO complaint —to simply let the accused perpetrator resign. Since EEO complaints are against employers, not individual perpetrators, once retired or resigned, they cannot easily be made to testify.
I share reporting that suggests this loophole has been used for decades across the government, with ‘unofficial cover’. Why? Likely because it benefits the government, reputationally and financially.
It gets much worse.
My further understanding is that these agency EEO Programs have special delegated congressional authority to make fast-track awards of money, reportedly as high as $255,000, to resolve complaints of EEO discrimination “off-the-record” — leaving minimal to no permanent paper trail.
This has led, in my opinion, to the creation of LOOPHOLE #2.
The second loophole is like an infection, or mold, growing behind the cover given, unofficially, to LOOPHOLE #1…
Innovative people may have found a way to turn the agency EEO Program into vector for multimillion dollar fraud. How? By finding a way to use a collaborating federal employee as a complainant, and rig a prevailing complaint — and take home a windfall financial settlement for EEO ‘retaliation’ that never really happened.
Here’s how I think it works.
LOOPHOLE #2 appears to exploit newer laws in 1991, 1993 and 2009 to use a collaborating employee as a complainant and then create the necessary administrative evidence to justify ripping off a settlement from an agency EEO Program.
Within the 90 days of mandatory mediation or counseling time, in an off-the-record report, there is now a bubble of ‘artificial immunity’ around the government, and the alleged perpetrator.
The victim CANNOT make a complaint, by law.
Within the bubble, these low security, administrative, EEO programs have the ability to wield, quasi-judicial authority — without the normal safeguards and transparency of the justice system. They can ‘dismiss’ the off the record complaint, and the civil liability for sexual harassment — like a federal judge. Or erase it by settling the confidential claim with a payment of government money.
It’s the perfect target for an intelligently constructed, insider, fraud scheme…IF you can figure out how to guarantee a payout. My understanding is the final decision rolls up to an executive at the agency.
How do you guarantee they’ll decide to make an award to your ‘insider’ complainant? Decades later, a scenario emerged to make it worth the effort.
Laws in 1991 and 2009 call for automatic awards of money (or other compensatory benefits) in compensation for damages after ONE specific EEO violation: “manager retaliation after an EEO disability discrimination complaint”.
In a normal civil court, someone making an EEO retaliation complaint would have to have to litigate, and establish that claim. BUT — in government, the EEO Program has special congressionally delegated authority to issue a settlement — if the right evidence exists.
So how could a ‘bad actor’ make that evidence exist? I have a theory based on what I saw in government.
LOOPHOLE #2 is a social engineering formula to qualify an ‘insider’ federal employee, working as a collaborating complainant — and sent through the agency EEO Program with a disability retaliation claim for an up-to $255K settlement.
How do you get the actual evidence of retaliation?
By misleading their naive new federal manager into violating technical rules around the administration of a special type of employment leave, authorized by the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This special FMLA leave is federally protected. Retaliation or interference by a manager is, technically, a ‘crime’.
For example, just by getting a manager to unknowingly sign off on discipline for missed work while FMLA leave was used, or otherwise appearing to interfere with FMLA, insiders can fabricate evidence of a FMLA interference or retaliation violation. This contrived complaint can then be ‘settled’ with the 1972 federal EEO authority.
A federal executive can be, truthfully, told the evidence of the FMLA violation after an EEO complaint would be more than adequate for an attorney to argue the agency violated the law. Better to authorize an EEO discrimination retaliation settlement using the 1972 authority. (And, oh by the way, federal executive decision maker? Read these laws. It looks like under 1991 and 2009 laws, this complainant should get an ‘automatic’ award…let’s discuss how much?)
This whole catastrophe also has the side effect of torpedoing some unwitting new federal manager’s career.
In THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING, we see five (5) failed attempts to make this technique work on my character, in the story. These techniques would work on just about any naive, new, federal manager. The report to Congress lists all the techniques. Here’s just one example.
EXAMPLE…
“Agency insiders tell the targeted federal manager — correctly — that the terms of an employee’s FMLA leave doesn’t appear to allow the leave to be used for a particular medical symptom. It’s not part of the underlying medical condition supported by the FMLA. Yet the employee has used FMLA leave. Written discipline should be given to this employee by YOU, their manager. Meanwhile, as you, the manager, prepare the discipline, the agency insiders get the insider federal employee complainant to obtain precisely the medical note that permits the use of FMLA leave, for that medical condition. They then conceal the existence of the note, while continuing to press the manager to write the discipline for the unauthorized use of FMLA. If the manager signs off on that discipline, the agency insiders now have evidence of ‘FMLA interference’ against their ‘insider’ complainant. The manager holds sole responsibility for their actions. Legal and HR support are ‘advisory’. Once evidence of FMLA interference exists, they can truthfully say it’s in the government’s best interests to use the 1972 authority to settle. They can also point to any legal requirements that indicate an award of money or other compensatory action by the government.”
So, did it work on me? No.
All five techniques failed to work on me. How did this one fail?
In this example, in the story, it was the 4th attempt to incriminate me. When I am asked to write discipline for improper use of FMLA, I was already suspicious. I sought out the person handling medical notes and double-checked in writing. That’s when I find out, in the story, that the appropriate medical note, authorizing use of FMLA, had been received many days before. Had I issued the discipline as requested by the ‘insiders’, I would have been issuing discipline to an EEO disability complainant, for the use of disability-related FMLA leave, authorized by a medical note, already in the government’s possession, weeks before.
That would likely fit the ‘automatic damages’ scenario, of manager retaliation after an EEO complaint.
How did I know how to keep myself safe? I was saved by instant karma.
Unknown to the ‘insiders’, I’m not just a federal IT manager. I’m also a former county commissioner, and Vice Chair of a county commission that handles discrimination complaints.
It was a result of volunteer work I’d done after becoming a dual Sri Lankan-American citizen, back in 2001. It was right after the 9/11 attacks when I was sworn in as a citizen.
Things felt as serious as a heart attack in DC on 9/11. I’d been evacuated from a meeting in a federal building near Capitol Hill. I’d watched the smoke pouring out of the Pentagon as I drove home, giving a ride to a friend who’d taken the train that day.
We were, effectively, at war, just as I was becoming a citizen. I felt like I owed some service as a new American. So, as I watched friends get deployed overseas, I committed myself to a decade of volunteer work in the community. I saw an ad for volunteers, and sent my resume to the County Executive’s office. That’s how I had — randomly — ended up a county commissioner.
Of course, none of this background was highlighted on my federal IT manager resume. So none of the agency ‘insiders’ had any idea I knew enough to know I was being misled — every time.
THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING tells the dramatized story of how I kept safe from the loopholes, and turned the tables.
I triggered an investigation of the ‘insiders’…with disastrous results…
THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING weaves together a dramatized story, based on everything I learned about the ‘alternative’ civil rights system created for federal employees in 1972. The backdrop is my personal spiritual journey, coming to terms with the legend of an ancient curse on my Sri Lankan Tamil, attorney, grandfather.
Because of that curse, I was taken to a Hindu temple with a white cobra at age 10, and blessed with a protection spell. Since then, my life has always been a little strange…
CHAPTER ONE and CHAPTER TWO of THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING are an overview of the technical part of the story, all in one place. That’s where you are, right now — in the introduction and overview before CHAPTER ONE begins. An index — at the end of this chapter— lists the other chapters in the THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING series. This will grow as more chapters are published.
CHAPTER THREE and CHAPTER FOUR are a prelude story called “Blood Curse, White Cobra”. Presented in two parts, it tells the true family legend of a blood curse, on my attorney grandfather, in Sri Lanka, back in the 1930s. He was cursed by a local folk magic practitioner after he allegedly used his legal skills in ways that were harmful to others in the community…
I hope you enjoy THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING series.
Peace be with you.
With love & respect,
Eeshan
THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING — Finding Ancient Jesus in the Post-Whistleblower Era
A DRAMATIZED STORY BASED ON REAL EVENTS
CHAPTER ONE: Seeing the BIG PICTURE (an overview of THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING, in five sections) — PART 1
In 2019, I was left asking — WHAT WOULD JESUS DO (WWJD)? A government colleague, IT Specialist David Matthews, had been found dead, days before a Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) investigation.
I’d triggered that EEO investigation. Matthews was supposed to be a witness…
#1 — WHILE WORKING AS A FEDERAL MANAGER, STAFF WARNED THAT IS WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO REPORT SEXUAL MISCONDUCT IN GOVERNMENT
I’ve spent over 25+ years working in, and around, government. After 15+ years as a Public Sector Management Consultant, I joined the federal service as a senior IT manager. I then spent another decade working as a federal IT manager, at two different departments of government. In 2019, I received one of the highest awards my agency gives, for generating exceptional cost savings to the government.
In 2020, I resigned, reporting anomalous behavior by ‘insiders’, which I now believe is connected to the systemic abuse of special authorities given to the government, around civil rights, in 1972.
The warning signs came early.
After becoming a federal employee (Fed) in 2010, I kept hearing other Feds — one of them an older woman, in tears — say it was ‘impossible’ to report sexual harassment (or other EEO discrimination) while working for the government.
As a newly minted federal manager, I disputed them.
They insisted.
They all told the same basic story. If you report sexual harassment in government, the government would make a fuss — on paper. Then, after the attention died down, your report would be “swept under the rug”. That’s the phrase they all used.
Soon, you’d be administratively attacked by ‘agency insiders’ — Feds at your agency — who protect a culture of sexual misconduct.
It seemed like an absurd thing for someone to suggest. There were also no specifics on exactly how this administrative attack would work.
Then, after a few years as a federal IT manager, I began to see for myself that — irrespective of any issues with EEO reporting — there were quite a few sex scandals that would emerge on the grapevine — and then disappear without comment from management. Everyone would know. Sometimes it would be in the newspapers. But it was still never discussed. It was a secret — an open secret.
Could it be true, what staff were saying? When I first heard it, the idea of a federal agency Human Resources (HR) department ‘going rogue’, and enabling rampant sexual misconduct in a government agency seemed TOTALLY unbelievable.
As I later learned, along with the rest of America, it isn’t…
THE CANARY IN THE COLEMAN
Law & Crime reports that in 2018, the head of Human Capital at the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) was removed.
Corey Coleman’s HR organization allegedly used legal and administrative process to obstruct reports of his own sexual harassment, and that of others, for years. Coleman allegedly hired sex partners for his male colleagues at government expense. People reporting him or the misconduct were, themselves, harassed, or pushed out of the agency.
Here’s the 2018 headline from the Washington Post.
How did this happen?
If it went on “for years”, what does that say about the quality of the enforcement around reporting internal abuses of authority, or power, in the federal management landscape?
Federal management approaches tend to be similar across different agencies. So, what proactive steps were taken by the government, to see if this was happening elsewhere?
What was done to warn all federal managers of this scenario?
Perhaps they did something. But as a federal manager, at another federal agency just a few city blocks away at the time, I don’t remember seeing a damn thing.
Here’s the other kicker…
In the wake of the allegations, GovExec reports Coleman simply retired — just like anyone else.
The article says, “While the redacted summary did not name the official, a FEMA spokesperson confirmed Monday that Corey Coleman was the chief human capital officer for FEMA until he resigned June 18, before he was to be interviewed by FEMA investigators.”
A criminal investigation is reportedly ongoing, but now almost 6 years later, there are no charges that I could find.
So, how could something like that go on for years?
If I had to guess, knowing the federal workspace, it’s for the same reason my character doesn’t say anything, for years, in this dramatized story. In THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING, until the problem is dropped into my lap by the ‘insider’ characters in the story — I leave it alone.
Why?
Because in government, you’re taught to stay in your lane.
But, like I said, in THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING, the problem arrives at my door. That happened because of my supervisor, in 2017…
CLICK HERE FOR CHAPTER TWO!!!
THE GOVERNMENT DENIES WRONGDOING — Finding Ancient Jesus in the Post-Whistleblower Era
A DRAMATIZED STORY BASED ON REAL EVENTS
INDEX OF CHAPTERS
CHAPTER ONE: Seeing the Big Picture — PART 1 (You are here!)
CHAPTER TWO: Seeing the Big Picture — PART 2
CHAPTER THREE: Blood Curse, White Cobra — PART 1
CHAPTER FOUR: Blood Curse, White Cobra — PART 2
CHAPTER FIVE: The Shocking Untold History of the Government’s Civil Rights ‘Exemption’ Program (Coming Soon!)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eeshan Melder is a Public Sector IT Programs Specialist with 25+ years of experience in federal program operations. After 15 years as a Public Sector Management Consultant, he joined the federal service as a senior manager. He spent a decade at two different departments of government as a Supervisory IT Program Manager, a Senior Adviser, and a Division Director. In 2015, Eeshan was certified as a federal agency Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt, specially trained to diagnose broken federal systems using engineering industry methods. In 2019, he received the Comptroller’s Award, one of the highest performance-based awards given by his federal employer, for generating exceptional cost savings to the government. In early 2020, he resigned from federal service, reporting apparent vulnerabilities in the design of the mandatory Federal EEO Program used across the federal government, since 1972, for federal employees to report sexual harassment and other EEO violations. He holds a Master’s degree in Communications Management from the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada.
POSTSCRIPT
In April 2020, a month after I resigned from government, the Federal #MeToo report was released by the government’s own U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The report raised concerns about the Federal Sector EEO Program.
More than a year later, a September 2021 article in FEDWeek quoted a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from a group of legislators urging an audit of the federal EEO program. The letter cited concerns “…the ‘fox is guarding the henhouse’, due to…agencies conducting their own (sexual harassment) complaint investigations…”.
As of 2024, and it’s not clear if any audit has happened. In February 2024, an article in FEDWeek noted that GAO issued “a report on training on preventing sexual harassment in the federal workplace says that such harassment has been a persistent problem for years, and also one that is underreported”.
No audit is indicated. No other action to actually address the problem is indicated or recommended. The GAO has been asked to conduct an audit of the Federal Sector EEO Program by legislators. It appears the organization is making a choice not to do so.
Why? Is the government cooking the books on sexual harassment?
The article does add, “GAO pointed out that it has issued some two dozen reports on sexual harassment and assault since 2011, some of them focused on the uniformed military but most involving federal employees as well, or exclusively.”
Meanwhile, sexual abuse scandals have continued to emerge in government at the Merchant Marine Academy (Department of Transportation) and elsewhere. In 2023, the Los Angeles Times ran an article…“Former warden at women’s prison known as ‘rape club’ gets 70 months for sexual abuse”. The warden of this federal prison was found guilty of molesting his own inmates in his prison, forcing them to pose naked for him. These are criminal, not civil, offenses, but could the permissiveness of the workplace Federal EEO laws for staff be a factor?
In February of this year, CNN reported a story with the headline, “CIA fires whistleblower who is suing over claim she was sexually assaulted at spy agency’s headquarters”, further suggesting we may have, indeed, entered a very dangerous ‘post-Whistleblower’ era. If so, it compromises the security of federal workers, and the integrity of government, in profound ways that even legislators and attorneys may not fully understand.
