Feb 20, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

The recently appointed director of a federal agency responsible for protecting federal employees from job discrimination startled gay activists this week when he said he was reviewing whether it is illegal for the government to discriminate against federal employees based on their sexual orientation.

Scott Bloch, director of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency, was quoted by the Washington Post in a Feb. 18 article as saying he was uncertain whether a provision of the civil service law applies to federal workers who believe they are being treated unfairly because they are gay, bisexual or straight.

Bloch, an attorney and an appointee of President Bush, replaced gay attorney Elaine Kaplan as head of OSC in January. President Clinton had appointed Kaplan, whose term ended last July.

Bloch served as deputy director and counsel to the Task Force for Faith-Based & Community Initiatives at the Justice Department at the time Bush nominated him for a five-year term as head of OSC. The Senate confirmed Bloch’s nomination on Dec. 9.

Bloch’s comments to the Post on OSC’s role in addressing gay-related issues came less than a month after he removed, in an unannounced action, all information on OSC’s Web site and internal documents stating that sexual orientation discrimination in the federal workforce is illegal. Information classifying sexual orientation discrimination as a “prohibited personnel practice” had been included in various OSC documents and brochures since 1995.

“It is wrong to discriminate against any federal employee, or any employee based on discrimination,” the Post quoted Bloch as saying. But the Post said Bloch added, “It is wrong for me, as a federal government official, to extend my jurisdiction beyond what Congress gives me in the actual interpretation of the statutes.”

“This is truly disturbing and scary,” said Kitty Durham, a management analyst with the U.S. Department of Transportation and a former board member of the gay federal employees group Federal GLOBE.

“He appears to be setting the stage to overturn nearly 30 years of interpretation of civil service law,” Durham said.

Durham and veteran D.C. gay activist Frank Kameny, a recognized expert on federal employment policies pertaining to gays, said a government policy declaring that anti-gay job discrimination is illegal in the federal workforce has been in place since 1975. The two noted that every U.S. president since that time, including the administrations of Republicans Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, has adhered to this policy.

Bloch did not return Blade calls seeking comment on the sexual orientation issue. OSC press spokesperson Mary Monahan said she would attempt to arrange a Blade interview with Bloch about the sexual orientation issue but did not do so by press time.

Kameny said Bloch would be “dead wrong” if he claims existing law does not give his agency authority to uphold the government’s longstanding policy of banning sexual orientation discrimination against federal employees.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which sets policies on federal personnel matters, continues to list sexual orientation discrimination as a prohibited practice on its Web site. However, OSC, rather than OPM, has served as the lead agency in enforcing the policy of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal employees in several agencies and departments, broke the news about OSC’s removal of references to sexual orientation discrimination from its internal documents and Web site in a Feb. 12 news release.

Among other things, the NTEU noted that OSC removed the sexual orientation information from its Web site and from a brochure and flier, training slides, a press release, and a form used by employees to lodge discrimination complaints.

Colleen M. Kelley, the NTEU president, sent Bloch a letter demanding to know whether OSC is “backing away from its duty to enforce complaints of sexual orientation discrimination,” according to the news release.

“If the recent deletions to the OSC Web site indicate that OSC will no longer enforce these basic discrimination protections, I would appreciate a statement of your legal basis for taking that position,” Kelley said in her letter to Bloch.
A spokesperson for the NTEU said Kelley had not received a reply from Bloch as of late this week.

Federal GLOBE issued a statement saying the decision to remove OSC references to sexual orientation discrimination appeared to be “political pandering to the conservative right.”

Open season on gay employees
The Federal GLOBE statement says OSC’s actions send a “chilling message” that the office may be ignoring a federal personnel law that has been used since 1980 to define sexual orientation discrimination as a “prohibited ...