Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC) questions EPA Administrator Carol Browner during a Congressional hearing looking into discrimination and retaliation against whistleblowers at the Environmental Protection Agency in 2000. Mr. Leroy Warren, Chairman of the Federal Sector Task Force of the NAACP testifies on then-Administrator Carol Browner’s lack of interest in the charges of discrimination and retaliation at EPA that he brought to the administrator’s attention well in advance of the jury verdict that led Congress to convene the hearing. Ms. Browner is now the Energy Czar, an appointment made by President, Barack Obama, bypassing Congressional oversight that would at least have proved embarrassing, if not insurmountable, given the facts of Browner’s tenure at EPA during the Clinton administration.
In 2000, a jury found that the EPA, under then-administrator Carol Browner, was guilty of race, sex, and color-based discrimination, and that Ms. Browner tolerated a hostile work environment. During subsequent oversight hearings of the Congressional Science Committee, the Chairman instructed Browner to clean up the working conditions at EPA so the next administrator wouldn’t get handed “a garbage can.”
Despite promising to do so under oath, Ms. Browner never accepted the jury’s findings as EPA Administrator. She never disciplined any of the senior managers under her supervision at EPA who were implicated in Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner. She never stopped the appeal process in the case. It was her successor, Christine Todd Whitman, in her 1st act as EPA Administrator, who announced that the verdict in Coleman-Adebayo would not be appealed, and that the Agency would accept the jury’s findings.
Congress was so outraged by the conditions within EPA, that it passed unanimously in both houses the NoFEAR Act (Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation) 2001 and mandated that all Federal new hires be instructed in Coleman-Adebayo v Browner within 90 days, and that all Federal workers receive the instruction every 2 years.
Apparently, being found guilty of discrimination by a jury of her peers, having Congress enact legislation to outlaw her administrative behavior, and mandate that all Federal workers be instructed in Coleman-Adebayo v Browner was not enough to derail Ms.Browner’s career, or to prevent the retaliation against Dr. Coleman-Adebayo from the EPA that continues to this day.
These are not “allegations,” they are matters of public record.
The core of the case in Coleman-Adebayo v Carol Browner was Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. President Obama is a civil rights attorney. The question of justice in this matter has not been adequately addressed, with Ms. Browner’s ascension back into the heights of power, while Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, who stood up for civil rights for all Federal employees was thrown under the bus where Rosa Parks, a generation before her, took her stand.
The media need to start asking the president, Ms. Browner, and new EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, what the public is to make of this regrettable case of a whistleblower being vilified, while her tormentors, Carol M. Browner, and the staff Browner left behind at EPA are still retaliating, still discriminating against whistleblowers (who may be able to prevent poisonous peanuts from killing people). The very system and many of the same managers — so vilified by the courts, Congress, and the Executive, are still thriving within the EPA after 8 years and two administrators since Browner’s departure.
