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By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
 
The former director of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel criticized her successor, Scott J. Bloch, and his staff this week for refusing to investigate a complaint by a gay federal worker who charged that his superiors retaliated against him for disclosing alleged unethical behavior by a fellow employee.
Elaine Kaplan, who served as OSC director from 1998 to 2003, said the OSC violated the U.S. Whistleblower Protection Act by dismissing a retaliation complaint by Michael Levine, a radio technician with the U.S. Forest Service in California.
Kaplan, who is a lesbian, noted that OSC issued the dismissal notice Dec. 28, 2004, more than a year after Levine filed the complaint, without interviewing witnesses and without deciding the case on its merits.
Among other allegations, Levine charged that a Forest Service personnel officer who participated in the retaliatory action against him referred to gay people as “those fucking faggots.” The personnel officer denies he made such a comment.
Levine said the same personnel officer pursued charges against him for displaying nude “children” on his office computer, after the officer discovered the charges were false.
Kaplan said substantial evidence existed to warrant an OSC probe into the case, and a finding of retaliation might have been made even if the allegation about the anti-gay slur could not be proven.
In addition to dropping the retaliation complaint, the OSC also dismissed without an investigation a charge by Levine that his supervisors engaged in discrimination against him based on his sexual orientation.
In a Dec. 28 letter informing Levine of its decision to drop the retaliation and sexual orientation charges, OSC cited a controversial policy implemented by Bloch that limits OSC’s role in sexual orientation cases to only those in which gay related “conduct” is involved.
“In the absence of any evidence of any discrimination for off-duty conduct, we found, therefore, no basis for further action concerning this allegation,” Thomas W. Forrest, an attorney with the OSC Complaints Examining Unit, stated in the letter.
“I have to tell you that I don’t know that I have ever seen a more outrageous instance of the unjustified closure of a case without an investigation,” Kaplan told Levine in a March 2 e-mail message. “I found it shocking.”
Officials at OSC did not respond to repeated attempts for comment.
Kaplan said she decided to speak out on the case after Levine contacted her last week and sent her a collection of documents pertaining to the case, including the three-page letter Forrest sent Levine explaining why OSC chose not to investigate the case.
Kaplan’s criticism of the office she once headed follows more than a year of complaints by gay activists and members of Congress that Bloch has put in place procedures and actions that have damaged OSC’s mission of protecting federal workers from discrimination and retaliation.
In one of his first official actions upon taking office at OSC in January 2004, Bloch removed all references of sexual orientation discrimination from the OSC Web site and from OSC’s printed literature.
President Bush appointed Bloch to a five-year term to run the OSC, an independent, adjudicatory agency. The agency’s task is protecting whistleblowers that uncover government corruption or “gross” mismanagement or incompetence.
President Clinton appointed Kaplan to the OSC director’s post in 1998. He later issued an executive order prohibiting job related discrimination against gay federal employees and directed the OSC to investigate cases of anti-gay discrimination in the federal workforce.
Levine, 65, said his troubles at the Forest Service began in 2003, shortly after he raised concerns about a fellow employee who appeared to be conducting a private business enterprise from his work station at the Forest Service.
At the time Levine had been working at the Forest Service’s Inyo National Forest in Bishop, Calif., for 32 years. With a background in electrical engineering, he said he served as a technician in charge of operating and servicing a radio communication network for Forest Service rangers and other employees. There had never been a complaint filed against him in all of his years of service up until that point, Levine said.
Inyo National Forest is located in eastern, central California near a number of historic national parks, including Death Valley Park and Yosemite National Park. Bishop, a popular resort town, is about 30 miles west of the Nevada boarder.
In March of 2003, Levine said he and an assistant collaborated in filing a complaint with the government’s Office of Inspector General about an employee who appeared to be operating a private outdoor goods supply business ...
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