With their towering peaks, foaming rivers, deep canyons, austere deserts and verdant forests, national parks offer some of America’s most gratifying escapes. They attracted a record 307 million visitors in 2015, and in this, their centennial year, they are expected to get even more.
With their towering peaks, foaming rivers, deep canyons, austere deserts and verdant forests, national parks offer some of America’s most gratifying escapes. They attracted a record 307 million visitors in 2015, and in this, their centennial year, they are expected to get even more.
But there is no escaping some social problems. Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform got the latest sorry revelations about workplace sexual harassment in the very places Americans go to be inspired.
Members of Congress heard Kelly Martin, chief of fire and aviation management at California’s Yosemite, recount three incidents in which she says she was victimized by a supervisor, who peeked through her bathroom window and tried to kiss her. He was allowed to keep his job until he got around to retiring. She decried a “clear failure of management to take action to investigate and advocate on a victim’s behalf.”
Yosemite is just one of the parks with problems. The Montana Pioneer recently said multiple sources, including a senior Yellowstone official, “have reported to the Pioneer allegations of recent sexual harassment or systemic financial misconduct, or both, at the Park.” The Interior Department’s inspector general reported in January that some male employees in the Grand Canyon demanded sex of female co-workers, and retaliated against those who refused.
Women at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida were often subjected to unwanted advances and lewd comments, according to the IG’s report. A former district manager blamed the conduct on “incompetent leaders and an attitude of, ‘Hey, I can do anything I want and there’s nothing you can do to me.’”
Too often that last claim seems to be accurate. Under questioning, Michael Reynolds, recently named deputy director for operations at the Park Service, said he knew of no one who has been sacked for sexual misbehavior in the last few years. The Canaveral superintendent was ordered to work from home — a penalty that a watchdog group called a “kick upstairs to a nonjob.”
Some members of Congress are fed up with the delays, inaction and excuses. “You don’t need a memo to deal with this,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said about Martin’s alleged harasser in Yosemite. “You need handcuffs and a trip to the sex offender registry.”
Combating sexual harassment can be hard in a big factory or a busy office. Policing it is even harder in remote outposts where workers are often far from their managers.
So the Park Service needs to do everything it can to encourage victims to come forward, investigate allegations promptly and thoroughly and hold harassers accountable. And, as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has emphasized, the culture of the Park Service needs to change to prevent such behavior from occurring.
Reynolds vows the Park Service “will become a model agency.” It has a long way to go.