Interior Department staff should not have used the sordid episode of sexual harassment at Grand Canyon National Park for political purposes, according to a woman who said she was one of the victims of the harassment/NPS
Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift should not have used the saga of sexual harassment in the National Park System for political purposes, says a woman who claimed to have been a victim of such during her time at Grand Canyon National Park.
Ms. Swift raised the topic in "welcoming" the resignations of nine of 12 members of the National Park Service Advisory Board. The board members, whose role is to advise the National Park Service and Interior Department on a variety of subjects, but not on the day-to-day operation of the park system, resigned earlier this week because Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would not meet with them.
"We welcome their resignations and would expect nothing less than quitting from members who found it convenient to turn a blind eye to women being sexually harassed at National Parks,” Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said.
That curt statement drew the ire of at least one woman who said she was harassed at Grand Canyon.
" As one of those women who was sexually harassed while employed at Grand Canyon National Park, I am personally offended by the DOI’s statement," she wrote the Traveler. "It is disappointing to me that the current DOI administration, which has pledged to change a pervasive culture of sexual harassment in the NPS, would use an incredibly painful experience for myself and numerous other women in an apparent political maneuver.
"I do not believe the members of the NPSA board were in any way complicit in the sexual harassment scandal that has swept through the NPS," she added.
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I hope this was addressed directly to the Secretary's office as well and that she receives a reply of some sort from Ms. Swift.
Swift's statement was a cheap-shot diversion, nothing less. Secretary Zinke did not follow the law and convene at least 2 NPSA Board meetings last year, and now his spokesman blames the Board for not taking action upon something which isn't even in their mandate. What a crock!