Absinthe
Living my life as an exclamation, not an explanation...
It should be noted by readers that Absinthe is not a lawyer,
and anything posted in this blog should not be used as a
substitute for professional advice from a lawyer
This evening I had a wonderful long chat with Irene Hofmann, of Hofmann v Fermilab fame (see the previous two posts). Her lawsuits are long behind her, but after spending 10 years seeking justice through every level of federal court, they are obviously still an ongoing theme in her life today.
Talking to her confirmed that her experiences dealing with the Fermilab Equity Office mirrored those of Kay and myself; the only difference with me is that the lab couldn't fire me because I wasn't their employee...they still had an obligation however under Title IX to address my complaints regarding my statistical studies which revealed widespread endemic gender discrimination on site...if you have been following my story in this blog, you will know the lab disdained to investigate those complaints and I have thus since taken my complaints on up the ladder to the Department of Energy Office of Civil Rights.
It is downright eerie to hear Irene talk about her experiences with the Fermilab Equity office. Whole paragraphs of what she has to say have been said, almost word for word, by myself and by Kay.
Irene had the wonderful suggestion that I should contact my congressperson (and the congressperson of the district in which Fermilab lies) to complain about the misuse of taxpayer monies towards hiring armies of attorneys to fight well motivated complaints of discrimination and/or harassement.
I'll probably write more about Irene in upcoming posts (right now it is late and I am tired), but I just wanted to say here that she is an incredibly wonderful, warm, funny person who has a great perspective on what happened to her. She, like me, knows that fighting these battles is something you do not so much for yourself, but those who come after you (both Irene and I have daughters). Keeping that in mind, I will be writing to my congressperson tomorrow. Perhaps your plans for tomorrow should also include doing the same; our tax money should not be wasted on steamrolling innocent victims of the discriminatory crap that goes on at Fermilab. Please really give it some consideration. It will only take a few minutes of your time.
11:30:47 PM
I just took a look at the number of attorneys Hofmann faced in her lawsuit against Fermilab. EIGHT attorneys from FOUR separate lawfirms. And that is not counting all the paralegals, etc, that form that legal team. A veritable army of attorneys was thrown into defending Fermilab against Hofmann's allegations. All paid for with your tax dollars.
I have read up on the details of dozens of discrimination cases from the private sector, and cases against universities. No case I have ever come across had more than two attorneys named as representing the defendants when there was only a single plaintiff. But the Department of Energy needed EIGHT attorneys to fight Irene Hofmann's claims that her supervisor sexually harassed and intimidated her. God Forbid that Fermilab should take the easy and cheap route and just try to work in good faith to avoid a lawsuit altogether by warning Hofmann's supervisor to, at a minimum, not leave porn on lab computers and to quit smoking inside the lab buildings (which was a violation of the Illinois Clean Indoor Air Act). I mean, take those two things alone, and they are no brainers....they make the workplace a productive and safe environment for everyone. And they would have prevented Hofmann's supervisor from carrying out a lot of the degrading and harassing things that he was purportedly inflicting on her. Oh, and they would be enforcing lab policy and the laws of the land to boot.
But no, Fermilab has this attitude that everything must continue as it always has at the lab. Because that is how they do physics...changes of any kind might interfere with the morale of the males who are doing research, and God Knows we wouldn't want the males impeded in any way in their scientific endeavours. Lab policies mostly apply to females who complain (Fermilab has discovered that looking for even minor infractions of lab policies on the part of complaining females is a great way to either demote or completely get rid of them). If keeping the boys happy means that they be given free rein to degrade, harass, and humiliate the women working on site, well Fermilab will make sure that happens. Even if it takes an army of EIGHT attorneys to ensure that status quo remains unchanged.
Hofmann by that point in time was representing herself because she had run out of money. Nevertheless the government decided that EIGHT attorneys were necessary to fight the legal accumen of one lone downtrodden woman who did not have a law degree.
For fricks' sake...EIGHT freaking attorneys. The average discrimination lawsuit costs something like $150,000 to defend (ie; lawsuits that have only one attorney representing the defendant, and go all the way to trial). By my calculation, Fermilab spent likely over $1,000,000 of your taxpayer money to defend the fact that they do not enforce even the most simple of policies when it is a male that breaks them.
5:11:03 PM
I came across this today; yet another sexual harassment/discrimination/retaliation lawsuit against Fermilab. This one is somewhat unique in that the Illinois Department of Human Rights appears to have filed the complaint on behalf of the plaintiff. That pretty much never happens unless something really egregious went on.
I am working on finding out more details of the case. It appears that the plaintiff, Irene Hofmann, had a court-appointed attorney assigned to her case who was purportedly extremely inexperienced, and ended up royally screwing things up. After some poking around, it looks like the whole mess went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The case against Fermilab appears to have settled, but it appears that it was not in a way that Irene Hoffman had any control over because of the problems with the appointed attorney. Or at least that is what I gather.
I did find more details on the case on PACER, but the complaint I downloaded is 486 pages long (!). RadioUserland won't let me have anything available for upload here that is larger than 1MG (and this is 16 MG). This is why I am a little fuzzy on the details as to exactly went down with regards to the IDHR taking on the case, the settlement, etc; the 489 page complaint appears to have been written by Hoffman herself and by that point it looks like she was representing herself because had run out of money. The complaint is unfortunately a tough read because it is so long. But it looks like Hofmann got the case all the way to the Supreme Court despite the fact that she was representing herself.
What is clear from from the complaint is that Hofmann apparently was hired as an electronic tech at the lab in the late 1980's. According to the complaint, her supervisor harassed her and left pornographic materials on her computer, a machine which only he had the password to (she provides Exhibits in the complaint that support this). The complaint also claims that her supervisor would at times pull his pants down and "show his rear", and that other females in the workplace commented on that aspect of his behaviour, and that he also made suggestive comments to Hofmann about her being "frustrated".
Hofmann complains of being repeatedly demoted after she complained (gee, sound familiar? It no doubt does to Kay Weber, and at least one other senior woman I know who is still working at the lab (and thus shall remain nameless here)). According to Hofmann's complaint, her supervisor also apparently incessantly smoked in Hoffman's office despite her repeated complaints to the lab about it and the fact that it violated the Illinois Clean Indoor Air Act.
It is interesting to read about how the Fermilab Equity Office handled Hofmann's complaints; Hofmann's experiences dealing with Ms.Engram and the Fermilab Equity office mirror my own and those of Kay Weber. In fact, statements Hofmann makes about how her complaints were handled are worded so similarly to statements Kay and I have independently made about that office that is almost eerie. The Fermilab "Equity" office is showing a long term pattern of mis-handling complaints, and mis-handling them in pretty much exactly the same way. The same person, Diane Engram, has headed that office since at least the 1980's. Does the fact that women at the lab risk demotion or dismissal for complaining reflect some unwritten policy at the lab, or the personality of Engram? Either way, it's illegal.
I'll write more about this case in future posts. Right now it is late, and I just waded through about 200 pages of a nearly 500 page complaint...it's time for bed...
