‘BRAZEN RETALIATION’

CIA Fires Sexual Harassment Whistleblower After Lawsuit

The woman alleges that the agency punished her for speaking out about her assault, which prompted dozens of other CIA employees to do the same.

The CIA fired a woman whose account of workplace sexual assault resulted in a closed-door congressional hearing and a slew of other misconduct reports, the Associated Press reported. The woman initially filed a lawsuit accusing the agency of retaliation through stiffer evaluations and “slut shaming” after she reported the assault, which allegedly took place in a stairwell at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Her lawyer told the AP that the agency “unlawfully ended a young woman’s career only because she had the moral courage, lacking in her managers, to stand up and be a witness about her sexual assault.” He accused the agency of fostering a culture that allowed misconduct to go unpunished. A dozen others came forward with harassment claims in the wake of her report. The CIA meanwhile stated their zero tolerance policy toward both sexual misconduct and whistleblower retaliation, rejecting the woman’s claim that she was being punished for speaking out.