Bredesen proposes closing records on sex harassment
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Bredesen is responding to the controversy over an official’s decision to shred notes taken during a sexual harassment investigation that led to the demotion of the governor’s senior policy adviser, Robert “Mack” Cooper.
“We have got a problem with sexual harassment in state government,” Bredesen said during an interview with The Associated Press.
He said he wants employees to feel safe in reporting harassment and is concerned “we’ve taken a giant step backward” amid publicity over the Cooper case.
“People are not going to come forward if it’s going to be on the front page of the newspaper,” he said.
Bredesen said he talked to the victim in the Cooper case and described her as desperately concerned her name would become public. He said he asked the investigator, Personnel Department lawyer Kae Carpenter, to try to keep the victim’s identity confidential. Carpenter shredded the notes she took while interviewing the victim.
The governor, a former health care CEO, said he wants the state to be able to retain records of a sexual harassment investigation the way private companies do and keep some details closed to the public.
“If you ask me today, I would come down on the side that there needs to be broad protections for the victims and witnesses, but the fact that it exists and what the disposition has been should be part of the record.”
Staff members are looking at other states’ policies, and Bredesen said he would talk to the news media before submitting a measure to the next session of the Legislature.
“That is a policy the governor should have proposed before a member of his administration started shredding documents,” said Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and a part-time editor at The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
The shredded notes were first reported last week by The Tennessean.
He commended Bredesen for taking action on a sexual harassment complaint. “But the credibility is gone when a member of his administration shreds documents and tries to say that’s policy,” Gibson said.
The administration’s decision to shred the documents suggests that it knew they were public records, he said.
Everett J. Mitchell II, vice president of news and editor of The Tennessean, said the governor made an overstatement by suggesting that newspaper reports have had a chilling effect on victims coming forward.
“We’ve acted responsibly in reporting on victims of abuse, and to characterize our actions as anything but responsible is misleading,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said the state doesn’t need any more exemptions to the open records law.
“If we close these type of records, how is the public to be assured that the problem of sexual harassment in state government has been adequately and appropriately addressed?” Mitchell said.
Bredesen, who faces an ethics complaint over the shredded documents, repeated that he thinks the shredding was legal and wasn’t intended to protect a senior staff member.
“There’s nothing to be covered up here,” Bredesen said. He also acknowledged, “I don’t have any way of proving that to you” without revealing details he thinks should remain private.
Cooper is on leave to undergo alcohol abuse and harassment counseling. He may return to a state job, but he can’t work on the governor staff and his pay was cut nearly $19,000.
The discipline has some lawmakers thinking “we strung him up,” Bredesen said.
The Legislature already has a policy that keeps secret all records of sexual harassment allegations and investigations. “You can’t even get confirmation a member of the Legislature has been accused of harassment by a member of the staff,” Gibson said.
But he’s willing to hear Bredesen’s proposal.
“If there are safeguards so that political friends and high-ranking state officials are not allowed to hide behind an exception like this, there’s room to talk,” Gibson said.