One of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s prominent appointees to USDA leadership, Tony Tooke, resigned on Wednesday as Forest Service chief amid allegations of sexual harassment. Perdue appointed Vicki Christiansen, a senior Forest Service official, as interim chief and said the agency is making “progress with new processes to combat sexual harassment and protect victims from retaliation.”
Tooke’s departure and the appointment of Christiansen were announced in emails to Forest Service employees, a contrast to last August’s handling of the selection of Tooke, a career Forest Service employee, as the agency leader. With 32,000 workers, the Forest Service employs one-third of the USDA workforce and is responsible for 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands in 44 states and Puerto Rico.
“I want you to know that I understand that it has been a difficult week in the Forest Service,” said Perdue in an agency-wide email. “While challenges remain in fostering a workplace that is rewarding, responsive, and respectful, the Forest Service has taken concrete steps to improve the working environment for all employees.”
Perdue said a new inspector general’s report “will confirm progress with new processes to combat sexual harassment and protect victims from retaliation.” The inspector general recommended the use of outside investigators, rather than Forest Service employees, when sexual harassment or misconduct is alleged. The agency agreed to a one-year trial of the recommendation in its Pacific Southwest Region, beginning this month.
The Forest Service updated its sexual harassment policy last July to require the investigation of all reports of sexual harassment or misconduct. “FS primarily uses its own internal investigators to perform these investigations,” said the inspector general’s report — exclusively so in the Pacific Southwest Region from 2014 to 2016. There was no direct evidence that the internal investigators are unfair or biased, but in interviews of 69 current and former Forest Service employees in the region, nearly half “expressed some level of mistrust” in the agency’s process for handling complaints. Use of internal investigators “may deepen that distrust,” said the report.
The news program PBS NewsHour says harassment of women in the Forest Service has been an issue for decades. The NewsHour reported that its investigation “revealed a widespread culture of sexual harassment and assault within the agency, and retaliation against those who reported it. That investigation also revealed claims of sexual misconduct against Tooke, including relationships with his subordinates before he became chief.”
In his own email to Forest Service employees, Tooke said on Wednesday that “every employee deserves a leader who can maintain the proper moral authority to steer the Forest Service” and that he had decided “what is needed right now is for me to step down … and make way for a new leader that can assure success for all employees and the agency.” In accepting the resignation, Perdue concurred that leaders “must have … moral authority” and thanked Tooke “for his decades of service to this nation and to the conservation of its natural resources.”
The interim chief, Christiansen, was the agency’s deputy chief for state and private forestry. “With seven years at the Forest Service and 30 with the states of Arizona and Washington, Vicki knows what is needed to restore our forests and put them back to work for the taxpayers. As a former wildland firefighter and fire manager, she knows firsthand that failure to properly maintain forests leads to longer and more severe fire seasons,” wrote Perdue.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow said she would press the Forest Service “to improve its procedures to thoroughly investigate incidents, prevent retaliation, and hold perpetrators accountable.” Stabenow is the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Forest Service. “I have long been concerned about the complaints of widespread sexual harassment and misconduct at the U.S. Forest Service,” said Stabenow. “Sexual harassment is unacceptable.”