The Department of Justice (DOJ) and state of New York have entered into an agreement for reforms after an investigation revealed a nearly decade-long hostile work environment overseen by former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo resigned as governor of New York in August 2021 after a number of sexual harassment allegations were made against him. At the time, Democrats in the state legislature were building momentum to impeach the three-term governor, and President Joe Biden had joined calls for Cuomo to step down.
The DOJ investigated the allegations against Cuomo and released its findings on Friday along with the outline of an agreement the Biden administration struck with the state of New York. Governor Kathy Hochul, who took over the state after Cuomo’s abrupt departure, agreed to implement a slate of reforms in the wake of the scandal, such as expanding a newly constituted HR department for the governor’s office and overhauling the process for filing complaints against senior officials.
The DOJ investigation found that Cuomo “subjected at least thirteen female employees of New York State … to a sexually hostile work environment” consisting of “unwelcome, non-consensual sexual contact; ogling; unwelcome sexual comments; gender-based nicknames; comments on their physical appearances; and/or preferential treatment based on their physical appearances,” according to the agreement published by the DOJ on Friday.
Federal investigators found that members of the governor’s office routinely protected the governor from complaints of sexual harassment, despite having knowledge of the events. In some cases, the victims were retaliated against, according to federal investigators.
“Indeed, the Executive Chamber’s response was designed only to protect Cuomo from further accusations, rather than to protect employees from sexual harassment,” the agreement says.
The DOJ uncovered “a pattern or practice of discrimination against female employees based on sex, in violation of Title VII, by subjecting them to and tolerating a sexually hostile work environment created by Cuomo between about 2013 and 2021,” according to the agreement.
Investigators also found a “pattern or practice of retaliation, in violation of Title VII, against some of those current and former employees after they complained that Cuomo harassed them.”
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Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ Civil Rights Division said in a statement: “The conduct in the Executive Chamber under the former governor, the state’s most powerful elected official, was especially egregious because of the stark power differential involved and the victims’ lack of avenues to report and redress harassment. With this settlement agreement, the Executive Chamber under Governor Hochul is undertaking additional actions that will address system failures of the past while helping prevent the recurrence of systemic sexual harassment and retaliation in the future.”