Who's the EEOC's Carlton M. Hadden? Carlton M. Hadden is the Director of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Office of Federal Operations (OFO) headquartered in Washington, D.C. Hadden's federal career started with the EEOC in 1987. He began as an attorney writing EEOC appeals decisions. In 1999, he became OFO Director and has served in that capacity for over seventeen years.
As OFO's Director, Carlton Hadden is decisively responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination laws in the federal sector. The top OFO official frequently issues notices of Right to File A Civil Action to complainants wanting to bring suit against the federal government in an U.S. District Court for a civil-rights violation.
Veterans Isaac Decatur and Ralph Saunders, black Americans, say OFO's Carlton Hadden, also a black American, gives new meaning to the term - Black on Black crime." Both Decatur and Saunders are former employees of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). They both filed Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints and successfully proved discrimination against the VA. Both men assert they notified OFO's Hadden of the incessant reprisal that operated within the VA.
"Carlton Hadden knew about the blacklisting of VA employees who filed complaints," alleges Saunders, "yet he failed to refer the case to the Office of Special Counsel for appropriate disciplinary action against lawbreaking managers." Saunder's references language in the Final Agency Decision related to his EEO complaint that plainly noted: "they [VA managers] also retaliated against other employees who filed EEO complaints." [Saunders v Veterans Affairs, VA Case No.200L-0629-2004100828]
"To the peril of many, Hadden abuses his authority," alleges Kirk Webster. Webster, a former Department of Defense (DoD) employee, recently filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against EEOC's OFO Director Carlton Hadden. "In 2012, I entered into an agreement with DoD's National Geospatial-Investigation Agency (NGA) to settle a discrimination complaint," says Webster. "When the agency breached the agreement, I timely notified the proper officials. The NGA's EEO Director agreed that the agency had breached the settlement contract. Yet, Carlton Hadden ignored the evidence. He decided the agency had not breached the settlement terms. [Webster v Defense - OFO Appeal No.:0120-15-2041]
Based on data extracted from the EEOC's Annual Report of the Federal Workforce, the enforcement agency rarely finds in favor of complainants alleging discrimination. For example, in fiscal year 2013 a total of 15,226 complaints were filed; yet, only 2.7% of the complaints closed with a finding of discrimination. In fiscal year 2014, a total of 15,013 complaints were filed; yet, only 2.6% of the complaints closed with a finding of discrimination.
"For far too long, Mr. Carlton Hadden, the Director of the Office of Federal Operations, has been part of the Washington bureaucracy that allows discrimination, rape, attempted rape, reprisal, harassment, bullying and more to persist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)," says Mr. Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees.
The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C), a
civil-rights-advocacy group seeking an end to race discrimination and retaliation,
asserts that USDA employees' harrowing accounts of reprisal and the EEOC's complaint statistics
suggest that Hadden's OFO fails to effectively address federal workplace discrimination.
The C4C has raised additional concerns regarding the EEOC's ineffectiveness to deter workplace discrimination
in an OPEN Letter to EEOC's Chair Yang.
