By Olivia Lloyd
The Charlotte Observer
TOWSON, Md. — The Baltimore County Fire Department settled a sexual harassment lawsuit that says it failed to adequately respond to reports that a male employee distributed inappropriate photos of female employees, federal officials said.
The county will pay $275,000 “to compensate female employees that were harmed by the harassment,” the Department of Justice said in a Sept. 5 news release.
Eleven women were targets of the sexual harassment, according to the complaint filing.
“Every employee deserves to feel safe in the workplace and I am proud of the progress we have started under my tenure to diversify our department and strengthen our culture,” Baltimore County Fire Chief Joanne Rund said in a news release. “Through this agreement, the Department is sending a clear message that Baltimore County will not tolerate harassment in the workplace and I fully support the steps required to ensure we are doing all we can to be supportive of all of our people.”
The county said in the release that the harassment happened before the county’s current administration took over, but officials are “entering into this agreement with our federal partners to ensure Baltimore County continues working to promote a safe, supportive workplace free from discrimination in all its forms.”
Officials say the fire department failed to adequately investigate the reports of harassment and also failed to communicate with the women who were harmed. In doing so, the department perpetuated a hostile work environment, federal officials say.
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In June 2017, a male employee of the fire department received a Facebook message from an anonymous person requesting a nude photo of another employee, according to the complaint.
The solicitor said he would exchange photos of six other female co-workers in exchange for one photo, the complaint says. The employee being solicited immediately notified his supervisors and the police department, investigators say.
Another male employee received a similar message along with photos of two women, and he also contacted the police, who began an investigation, the complaint says.
Two months after the messages were sent to the two employees asking for nude photographs of co-workers, the police department told the fire department not to begin an internal investigation to avoid interfering with its inquiry, according to the complaint.
“BCFD did not have to change its course of conduct following the Police Department’s directive because it had not taken any steps to investigate the matter prior to August 24, 2017,” the complaint says.
The police department informed several women that someone had solicited nude photos of them. After that, the women failed to receive communication about the investigation, the complaint says.
Instead, they were left “to speculate and piece together information related to the status of the investigation from their work colleagues or through the work rumor mill,” according to the complaint.
”At no time during the Police Department’s investigation did any Police Department official ask BCFD to refrain from communicating with (the women),” the complaint says.
Eventually, photos of several female employees in bikinis were posted to a “revenge porn” social media site, which one of the women discovered and sent to the police herself, the complaint says.
Fire department employees sometimes shared sleeping quarters and locker rooms, so the women “feared that they were sharing intimate quarters with a male coworker who was soliciting and sharing nude or inappropriate photographs of them,” the complaint says.
At no point were the women advised whether they were sharing quarters or working the same shift as the person who was trying to solicit photos of them, according to the filing.
The police department eventually confirmed the identity of the man who was soliciting and distributing these photographs, and the fire department suspended him, according to the complaint. The employee later resigned, and the complaint says the department never interviewed him about how he had obtained the photos and whether he still had any in his possession.
In response to the incidents, the fire department held a 15-minute online sexual harassment training, the complaint says.
The fire department’s inaction was “both objectively hostile to the victims and subjectively perceived as hostile by the victims,” investigators say.
The matter was referred to the Baltimore Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the news release. However, the Baltimore office failed to conciliate with the fire department, so it referred the case to the DOJ.
After several years, the county and the federal government agreed to settle the case.
According to a consent decree dated Sept. 5, the fire department must “overhaul” its process of investigating sexual harassment claims and periodically train employees on sexual harassment in the workplace, among taking additional steps.
“Like any other employer, fire departments must take prompt and appropriate actions to correct an ongoing hostile work environment,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in the release. “Addressing sexual harassment in the firefighting industry is critical to efforts to bring more women into a profession where they have faced historic rates of exclusion, marginalization and discrimination.”
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