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D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At Large) held a long-awaited hearing examining the District’s sexual harassment policy Tuesday, weeks after Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) rolled out a new anti-sexual-harassment order and months after sexual harassment allegations against Bowser’s ex-chief of staff put the issue in the spotlight.
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But while the stated intent was to seek feedback and suggestions to strengthen the policy through potential legislation, the hearing was more of a forward-looking informational session about what Bowser’s new policy will do, and it avoided probing how agencies have been investigating sexual harassment complaints.
Bonds said she hoped to gather more information about how agencies are interpreting Bowser’s new order in the hopes it could aid employees in understanding the policy. While employees were expected to testify about their experiences with or opinions about the District’s anti-sexual-harassment policy, just two did, including the executive director of the local AFSCME union representing government employees, Wayne Enoch. Employees can submit written testimony to Bonds’s committee until Nov. 26.
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“Having the order is great, but systematic culture change is necessary,” Enoch said, citing concerns that employees have brought to him about facing retaliation, such as through performance reviews, for making sexual harassment complaints. Without significant change, he said, “the District runs the risk of losing talented employees.”
As D.C. weighs sexual harassment policy, data shows scope of complaints
Bonds said in a statement afterward that she would consider codifying the District’s sexual harassment policies — including within the council and courts — into legislation.
The hearing unfolded after Bowser unveiled a new policy that bans relationships within a chain of command and updates the definition of sexual harassment, easing the burden on potential victims to prove they have been harassed. Bowser’s updated order followed the high-profile sexual harassment complaints lodged against John Falcicchio, her former chief of staff and deputy mayor of planning and economic development, by two women who worked in his department and were under his supervision.
Lewd texts, unwanted touching: Woman details allegations against Bowser deputy
In the aftermath of the scandal, multiple council members, including Bonds, pledged to use their oversight authority to probe the scope of sexual harassment in District government and the workplace culture within Falcicchio’s department, and council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (I-At Large) is expected to hold a hearing on the latter issue next month. The council also voted to require an independent review of the investigations into Falcicchio — which Bowser’s new order will now mandate for any top official credibly accused of sexual harassment — and the inspector general is expected to select an outside firm for the investigation soon.
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“I am glad that there is finally movement on multiple fronts to address the need for the safety and dignity of D.C. government employees,” council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who wants to codify the requirement for an outside investigation in her proposed legislation, said in a statement.
After investigations by the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel substantiated both complaints against Falcicchio in part, Bonds began surveying District agencies about sexual harassment within their ranks and compiling data on complaints. She said she found that there were 354 complaints from the time Bowser’s first sexual harassment order went into effect, in December 2017, through September 2023, with the majority involving verbal harassment.
Bonds also convened a working group with agency general counsels, human resources officials and others in the Office of Human Rights to discuss needed improvements, some of which she said were part of the mayor’s updated order.
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Bonds hoped that agencies with higher volumes of complaints, such as D.C. Public Schools and D.C. police, would testify Tuesday. But she said D.C. Public Schools “declined to participate” and a police representative had a scheduling conflict. A half-dozen other agencies came to testify.
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Asked if anything was missing from Bowser’s policy, Jed Ross, chief risk management officer for the District, who reports to Bowser, said no. Bonds also asked him if he expected an uptick in sexual harassment settlements under the new policy, to which he also said no, noting that it’s largely a continuation of the 2017 policy.
“I believe the policy is extremely thorough,” Ross said. “I think the mayor is leading in ensuring we take this very seriously as a government body.”
Bonds searched for some potential areas of improvement, but agency representatives didn’t propose any changes. In an interview with The Washington Post last month, Bonds said that during her survey of numerous government agencies, she heard concerns about whether the District’s sexual harassment officers had adequate bandwidth. Each agency has designated officers tasked with investigating complaints, but the positions are not full-time. And Bowser’s office has previously told The Post that more training was needed for them after concerns about the thoroughness of some investigations.
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But Charles Hall, director of D.C. Human Resources, told Bonds that he did not believe there was any problem with bandwidth or resources among the sexual harassment officers.
Bonds also sought to clarify several points in the order she said she hoped could be helpful to employees tuning in.
She questioned whether, under the policy, a person needed to tell their alleged harasser to stop, or if Hall believed it would be helpful to have that on the record for an investigation. Hall said this was not required. “An employee may not feel safe enough at that moment to state something,” he said. “We want to make sure they understand it is not their requirement to do so” but that different reporting avenues are available to them.
Bonds said one area of concern is that an employee can report alleged sexual harassment if they observed something inappropriate, even if they were not on the receiving end. “Do you think the order goes too far by saying if you say something, hear something, think something, that you can report it?” she asked.
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“No, I don’t think it goes too far,” Rachel Noteware, associate director of the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel, told Bonds. “We would rather someone report something and it turns out to be nothing, because that helps us ensure we are keeping the workplace safe for all people.”
Hall noted that under the updated definition of sexual harassment in the mayor’s order, employees should also feel comfortable to report single incidents vs. a longer pattern of misbehavior.
The update reflects a 2022 change in the law that broadened the definition of sexual harassment. Previously, victims had to show that the harasser engaged in “severe and pervasive” conduct. But the new order, like the law, now requires investigators to consider the totality of the circumstances, noting that no specific level of egregiousness or number of incidents is required to show that a person has been harassed.
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“The expanded definition means employees are empowered to report even singular or small incidents of a sexual nature,” Hall said.
Bonds said she also had to make clear for the record: Does the new policy prohibit hugging? The policy gave an example of a hypothetical employee who tended to greet people with hugs — but was told that this could make people uncomfortable and that he could get in trouble if he kept doing it.
“Hugs are not prohibited in the mayor’s order,” Hall said, noting that the excessive hugger was just an example.
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