Federal sexual harassment investigations are incredibly slow: 'They push you so hard to give up'

Me Too protesters.
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About 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men who work for a large federal agency say they have been sexually harassed on the job. And if they wish to formally accuse their harasser and pursue some sort of consequences, they must make their claim quickly and then settle in for a long, difficult adjudication process that will likely stretch on for several years.

In one case highlighted by The Washington Post, a Justice Department attorney named Christy McCormick spent seven years securing a recommendation from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for her harassment complaint against two male supervisors. The EEOC found in her favor, but nine years after the harassment happened, she has yet to receive back pay or damages. "I almost gave up numerous times," she said of the process. "They push you so hard to give up."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.