OPB’s Anna Griffin has the story here:
Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian has accused state legislative leaders of creating a hostile work environment in which reports of sexual harassment were ignored, underplayed or buried.
In a complaint filed Wednesday with his own Bureau of Labor and Industries, Avakian says Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek, two Democratic leaders of the Oregon Legislature, repeatedly ignored complaints of sexual harassment and unwanted touching by now former-Sen. Jeff Kruse until they became public last year. …
UO would do well to pay close attention to this. How many cases of sexual or racial discrimination have been ignored? How many have been investigated? How many have been “unfounded”? The track record at UO and the Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity is abysmal. Why was the new director let go after less than a year?