WE WILL SEE A LOT MORE OF THIS THANKS TO ELON

Gregory, an employee at the U.S. Agency for Global Media applied for the vacant position of “Kurdish Senior Television Specialist.”  When he was not selected, he filed an EEO complaint alleging retaliation for having filed a previous EEO charge. That charge was filed against a supervisor who was also the Selecting Official for the vacant job.   Here is what Elon and the Doge-ettes were oblivious to.  When the agency completed its investigation, the Administrative Judge found it failed to include all the information the regulations require. So, she ordered the agency to redo the report and fill in the gaps.

But, given what I suspect is going to be the case in many federal agencies soon, the agency did not have the staffing to get the job done in time. As a result, the Judge “… issued an Order Entering Adverse Inference Sanction & Scheduling Order, which found that the Agency failed to establish good cause for its inadequate record and that an adverse inference sanction was appropriate and directing the parties to brief Complainant’s entitlement to relief.” Stated differently, because they did not comply with the judge’s order to do a thorough report, the agency automatically lost. Click over to EEOC’s Development Of Impartial And Appropriate Factual Records for details on what should be in the Report of Investigation.

The lesson here is that everyone who files an EEO complaint should check the Report of Investigation (ROI) they get from an agency  to see if it complies with what the federal regulations require.  If not, object. Once the Judge sends the ROI back to thee agency to be corrected, many of these agencies hollowed out to fund tax refunds for millionaires are going to be unable to make the correction timely. That should get the employee a similar victory.

For more details, check out Gregory F., v. Amanda Bennett, Chief Executive Officer,  U.S. Agency for Global Media, EEOC No. 2023005087 (2025)