Federal Employment

According to records at the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, complaints about sexual harassment were filed at 109 of 171 VA medical centers during fiscal year 1992. The number of reported complaints, however, may be a poor indicator of the extent of sexual harassment at a particular facility. At the Atlanta Medical Center, for example, no complaints were made, but the facility was later found to have serious sexual harassment problems. The allegations at the 12 VA medical centers GAO visited involved a host of behaviors, including sexual innuendos, pressure for dates, touching, and pressure for sex. Although the total number of complaints and allegations of sexual harassment was small when compared with the overall number of VA employees, sexual harassment appeared to be more likely at some centers than at others. Also, alleged incidents of sexual harassments are underreported under VA's current system. The new Secretary of Veterans Affairs has issued several communications to employees and managers underscoring his commitment to "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment. He said that there must be no reprisals against employees who make sexual harassment and other equal employment opportunity complaints and that agencywide training on sexual harassment would be mandatory.

GAO found that: (1) VA processed and closed 85 formal sexual harassment complaints from fiscal year (FY) 1989 through FY 1992; (2) there were 42 formal equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints involving sexual harassment in FY 1992; (3) 49 percent of VA female employees and 21 percent of VA male employees perceived some form of sexual harassment during 1987; (4) of the 12 VA medical centers reviewed, 3 centers had a greater potential for sexual harassment to occur, 6 centers had problems with management's handling of complaints, and 3 centers resolved sexual harassment issues promptly; (5) the medical centers' use of equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint processing alternatives could lead to underreporting and infringements of employee rights; (6) employees at most centers expressed fear of reprisals for sexual harassment complaints; (7) the medical centers' EEO programs had a variety of problems, although their EEO counselors were generally knowledgeable; (8) medical center directors were concerned about logistical problems in providing mandatory sexual harassment training for their staff; and (9) senior VA officials have taken action to correct sexual harassment problems by mandating training, recentralizing complaint processing, establishing oversight of the sexual harassment complaint process by VA officials outside of the centers, establishing a telephone hotline for information and advice on filing complaints, and establishing a task force to address sexual harassment and other gender-related issues.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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