{"id":4291,"date":"2018-03-08T07:06:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T14:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=4291"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:31:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:31:23","slug":"usfs-woman-a-pbs-new-hour-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=4291","title":{"rendered":"USFS Woman – A PBS New Hour Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

They reported sexual harassment. Then the retaliation began<\/h1>\n

Nation<\/a>\u00a0

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Michaela Myers said she was first groped by her supervisor after a crew pizza party last summer, shortly after starting a new job as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. She was 22 and excited about the job. She had worked out diligently to prepare for the season, running and hiking with a heavy pack. She is from the Pacific Northwest, and had always loved the outdoors and a challenge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>She remembers her supervisor, Drew DeLozier, a Forest Service veteran, offering her beers at a crew member\u2019s house after dinner. He told her he was glad she was on the crew because she was \u201csexy\u201d and had \u201ca nice ass,\u201d she said. According to her account, he led her to a couch, rubbed her butt as she sat down, and slid his hand between her legs. Myers was shocked and upset, but didn\u2019t stop him. She had heard from other crew members that DeLozier could fly off the handle, and didn\u2019t want to make a scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t feel like you can say \u2018no\u2019 loudly to your supervisor,\u201d she said. \u201cI keep looking back on it and wishing I could have just punched him or something.\u201dAccording to Myers, the harassment and groping continued for the rest of the summer. When she confided in a fellow crew member, he told her this was an unfortunate reality for a female firefighter. She had a choice, she recalls him saying: report it and face retaliation, or do nothing and stay in fire.<\/p>\n

But in September, after the end of her three-month season in Oregon, Myers had enough. She reported the harassment to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service\u2019s parent agency. In October, she provided a sworn statement to a USDA investigator detailing all the allegations. At first, Myers found the Human Resource department\u2019s response encouraging. She was optimistic action would be taken. But two months later, the Forest Service sent her a letter that said the investigation was complete, no misconduct had been found, and the case was closed.<\/p>\n

Myers was furious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means they don\u2019t believe me that I was sexually harassed,\u201d she said. \u201cOr they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reached by phone, DeLozier, who still works for the Forest Service, said he was made aware of the allegations. \u201cI was cleared of all wrongdoing,\u201d he said.\"\"<\/a>\u2018We all live in this fear\u2019<\/strong>
\nHarassment of women in the Forest Service has been a problem for years. As far back as 1972, women have joined together to file class action complaints and lawsuits about gender discrimination and sexual harassment. More recently, in 2016, a congressional hearing was held to address the problem within the Forest Service\u2019s California workforce, which had also been the focus of previous complaints. The PBS NewsHour investigated what\u2019s happened since then, and found the problem goes much deeper. READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They reported sexual harassment. Then the retaliation began Nation\u00a0Mar 1, 2018 5:14 pm EST Michaela Myers said she was first groped by her supervisor after a crew pizza party last summer, shortly after starting a new job as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. She was 22 and excited about the job. She had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-campfire","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}