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Op-Ed | When It Comes To Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct, College Sports Have More Conscience Than NPS Officials

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Why did it take the National Park Service so long to act on sexual harassment complaints?/NPS


Editor's note:
The following column was written by a former Grand Canyon National Park employee who has asked to remain publically anonymous.

Both Grand Canyon National Park and Baylor University have recently faced scandals involving fundamental failures by management in their responses to sexual assault and/or sexual harassment allegations. The contrast between Baylor University’s handling of their situation and the National Park Service’s response to Grand Canyon’s sexual harassment problems could not be more different, nor be more telling.

One week after the release of findings from an independent investigation into the allegations, Baylor University suspended, then fired, its head football coach, reprimanded the athletic director, and removed Kenneth Starr from the position as president of the university.

Head football Coach Art Briles had brought unprecedented success to the Baylor football program, along with the financial benefits that athletic achievement brings to a university, and had eight years remaining on a 10-year contract and reportedly earned close to $6 million a year.

Subsequently, Athletic Director Ian McCaw resigned after deciding that a change in leadership for the athletic department was in the best interest of the university. And Kenneth Starr (of Whitewater fame) resigned as Baylor University’s chancellor as a “matter of conscience,” stating that, “We need to be honest … the captain goes down with the ship,” in an ESPN interview. It is further reported that other unnamed members of the school administrative staff and athletic department were also dismissed.

On the other hand, more than four months after the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General Investigative Report of Misconduct at the Grand Canyon River District, at least one former river district employee (Boatman 3) who was identified in the report remains employed by Grand Canyon National Park.

Superintendent Dave Uberuaga, who along with Deputy Superintendent Diane Chalfant was identified as having mishandled the reported sexual harassment incidents, was offered a reassignment to the NPS Washington Office in mid-May. At this writing, Ms. Chalfant remains the deputy superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park, despite the fact that the OIG report specifically established that she violated the confidentiality of the complainants by forwarding documents (see attachment).

Additionally, over a 15-year-period since a “Women in Law Enforcement Task Force Report” was issued in 2000, NPS managers and Human Resource professionals have not addressed the issues of gender bias, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments and retaliation that female rangers faced (High Country News, May 2, 2016), nor have they been held accountable for that failure. A 2007 EEO review that was initiated at Grand Canyon was apparently never completed.

Mr. Uberuaga chose to resign instead of accepting reassignment to Washington, but for reasons neither as a “matter of conscience” nor for the park’s best interest. Instead, Mr. Uberuaga was quoted in an interview published by Grand Canyon News after his June 1 retirement was announced as stating that the proposed reassignment was not a disciplinary action and that he would have liked to be the person responsible for enacting a plan to prevent future instances of sexual misconduct in the park. His comments appeared to be mostly about protecting his reputation vs. the harm done to the employees who experienced sexual harassment at the canyon and to the park itself.

Instead of even echoing the NPS’s and federal government’s long-standing policy of zero tolerance for sexual harassment, Mr. Uberuaga explained the past instances of sexual harassment by placing them in the context of 4,000 employee nights in the canyon per year where there were “vulnerable co-ed” situations that were never going to go away, thereby indicating his apparent continued acceptance for sexual harassment in the workplace.

What does the NPS’s response to the sexual harassment allegations at Grand Canyon say about the agency’s values?

One, it says that the agency values male employees over female employees.

Two, if Mr. Uberuaga’s statements to the Grand Canyon News are indicative of the accountability and responsibility that the NPS managers have taken for what happened at Grand Canyon, then the agency’s leaders still do not believe that they are accountable and responsible for providing workplaces free of sexual harassment and retaliation.

The unacceptably long delays in responding to the sexual harassment allegations and the reports of managerial improper handling of these reports further reflect how the agency has evolved into just another federal bureaucracy in the 100 years since its inception, showing that the agency has failed to heed Horace Albright’s (the second director of the NPS) entreaty to not do so.

And finally, it shows that the National Park Service has failed the public’s trust. How can the American people trust the NPS to preserve and protect the rivers, rocks, historic objects, wildlife, vegetation and other resources under its jurisdiction if it demonstrates such obvious disregard for the well-being and safety of its (female) employees?

Park employees and managers such as Mr. Uberuaga speak often of the “NPS family” when referring to the employees of the agency, many of whom, especially at the field level (e.g., the staff interacting with the public on the front lines), are talented and dedicated public servants and protectors of parks. Given how Mr. Uberuaga and other NPS managers responded to the allegations of sexual harassment of several “daughters” in the NPS family, how can agency leaders be trusted to protect the mere plants, animals, landscapes and cultural sites that make up the national parks?

The author is a former employee of Grand Canyon National Park.

Comments

Yet another scandal in Jarvis and Jewel's agency.  What a surprise.  Can't wait for the NPS kool aid drinking club apologists to run to the rescue here again in...3  2  1.....

And why is this former employee afraid to identify themself unless they are still part of the NPS?  If retired, then they wouldn't be afraid so I suppose that answers my own question.  And why should an employee fear retribution?  Because that is the culture of Jarvis NPS.  This is a 60 minutes story if ever there were one.  Start with Jarvis scandals from the beginning up to now.   


I am also a former employee of Grand Canyon National Park, who agrees with this op-ed article and SmokiesBackpacker.  The NPS would gave continued to ignore the boatman scandal if it hadn't become a national issue.  Leadership starts at the top.  Current NPS Director Jon Jarvis has placed himself and his cronies above the ethical standards enforced upon lower-level employees, and I consider him to be unfit to serve.  He should have been fired well before the book scandal.  Interior Secretary Sally Jewell's apparent decision to allow Jarvis to remain as Director, during the NPS Centennial Year, is very unfortunate.  This is a letdown to thousands of dedicated NPS employees.


I'm a former NPS employee who worked in a "pink collar" occupation.  I was expected to tolerate incredibly contentious and discourteous conduct on a regular basis from certain superintendents and division chiefs.  My competetence and commitment to the mission were called into question any time I had to tell someone no.  I doubt I would have been treated in this manner if I were male or emloyed in a male-dominant occupational group.  If I had treated any of my coworkers or customers in the same manner, I would have been called on the carpet in no time.  It was certainly unpleasant and I did feel I was valued less than men.   I finally had enough and moved to another agency where I don't have that problem.  I know what I experienced isn't just a part of the job, because my work outside of NPS was very different in the sense that I was treated with respect and courtesy.

I won't use my name because I witnessed some seriously vindictive behavior in the NPS and Ion't want any negativity to follow me to the new job.  In my experience, NPS has an organizational culture that cares more about resources and visitor counts than taking care of their employees, except for those who are firmly plugged into the "green and gray" family.  It's a shame sexual harassment doesn't cause climate change...if it did, NPS might be more responsive.

I didn't work at Grand Canyon, but everything in this article rings true to my experiences elsewhere.


This article is great! And together with a number of other recent events and articles (like Corbin Hiar's editorial entitled "NPS2100: Park Service Leaders Break Rules but Skate By"....in Greenwire, June 7, 2016), it highlights how the National Park Service and Jon Jarvis and many of its other top leaders just haven't changed, and are still using outdated management techniques. The Catholic Church, for instance, used to just transfer bad priests.  But they have learned that that is not acceptable, and now priests who violate basic laws and ethics will be prosecuted and disciplined. And major universities like Penn State and Baylor have learned that they can't ignore serious problems and accusations and shouldn't protect those who violate some of our most basic understandings of law and ethics. So the obvious question is this: when will the National Park Service and the Department of Interior learn, and when will they change? When will those who violate basic rules of law and standards of ethics be disciplined---no matter what their position or pay grade? When will we begin to punish those who discriminate and retaliate, and those who are guilty of blatant waste, fraud, and abuse,  and move them not to choice new positions, but out of the NPS? In the final analysis, there's so much to love in the NPS.....and it's just too bad there's this little cancer that continues to fester and rear its ugly head all so often as described so well in this article!


Unfortunately not much has changed regarding the " good old boy" network in the NPS in the last 40 years since I " joined" the NPS.  The crowning experience I had, after numerous sexual harassment incidents I both experienced and watched was when I was sexually harassed by a WASO division chief.  This was witnessed by a number of people. When I reported it to my female supervisor, her response was "what did you do to provoke him"? Then, it was , "oh, it is just xxxx being himself.  We all know how he is".  Needless to say, management protected its own. 

 

 


Backpacker--I think, as you can read above, your comments about the "NPS Kool-aid drinking club" are off base and wrong. Not one of us on NPT has any sympathy for what occurred at Grand Canyon.  It was wrong and unconciousnable.  Enough said?

 


Wait a minute, there seems to be more to all this than meets the eye.  Of all the folks I know on the rivers of the west, 85% perecent of them met there significant others on river trips, Does this mean when someone says " no" to a come on it is automatically sexual harassment.  And what about the story that one of the major complaintants and the author of this letter to Secretary Jewel carried on a consenual sexual relationship with "Boatman 3", only to become disgruntled and want decide she wanted to get back together with her husband?  Two other signator on the original complaint letter.  And then of course the other two individules that signed were released for there role of in passing around the p*&*s staw.  No the PC police have taken this to the 10 th degree.  Better adress the topic of employee fraternization first.  I also heard just recently that the park settled for big dollars to the complaintants. 


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