The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections agreed last week to modify its sexual harassment policies and training as part of a settlement with the Justice Department, which accused the state department of discriminating against an employee who complained that a supervisor sexually assaulted her.
The settlement agreement also resolves a lawsuit that the Justice Department’s civil rights division filed against the department in New Orleans.
The suit says a supervisor subjected the woman, an office administrator for the department’s Probation and Parole district office in Thibodaux, La., to sexual harassment that escalated from inappropriate comments and touching to sexual assault.
The Justice Department says at least four other department employees, including a part-time internal affairs investigator, knew about her harassment but didn’t report it.
Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokeswoman Pam Laborde said agency officials were “very quick and very swift to act” once the woman’s allegations were reported to them.
“If the (Probation and Parole) director didn’t know about it, how can you take action?” she asked. “We do have good policies in place. We’ll just brush them up where we need to.”
The department agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the woman. The Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted.
“Federal law requires employers to maintain a workplace free of harassment and hostility,” Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement.
The supervisor who allegedly harassed the woman resigned in December 2008 before a disciplinary hearing, according to the suit.
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