California Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Alleges Female Prison Workers Harassed, Undermined

In 2018, the New York Times published a front-page article on systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment faced by female prison workers. Although male prisoners are frequently the source of harassment and attacks, court records and interviews revealed that male colleagues too often encourage such behavior, undermining both the safety and authority of female officers. Sometimes, male colleagues join in the harassment themselves, while the workers who report such misconduct face retaliation, safety threats and termination. In 2017, the Bureau of Prisons paid $20 million in damages to female employees at a facility in Florida who were reportedly victims of gender discrimination for the decade prior, with managers ignoring complaints of masturbation by male inmates in front of female employees, in some cases allowing such harassment as a reward to inmates for good behavior. When female officers tried to discipline inmates, male supervisors would override them.

In the recent California case, plaintiff had years of experience working in prisons when she took a job as a building trades supervisor at a facility in Sacramento in 2014. Early on, she assigned her staff with the simple task of numbering the facility’s 30 golf carts, something that would cut down on confusion about who should take which cart for certain jobs. Her boss reportedly dressed her down, stated she wasn’t paid to think and ordered the numbers removed. A few years later, plaintiff asked a male colleague to make the same suggestion to the same boss, who in turn praised him for his great idea.