That move surprised the former firefighter and her attorney, given the department has faced a series of lawsuits from women and the 2016 suicide of a female firefighter who was bullied online by commenters who appeared to be familiar with the department. The death of Nicole Mittendorff grabbed national attention.
“The county has not tried to right the wrong, to say, ‘How can we improve?’ ” the firefighter said in an interview. “There is nothing. I was kind of hung out to dry.”
The woman asked not to be identified, citing the possibility of retribution in her current job in law enforcement, another male-dominated field.
The fire department said in a statement it demoted the captain, but declined to discuss the reasons for rejecting the EEOC’s proposed resolution, citing ongoing legal wrangling in the case. Fire Chief John S. Butler said in a statement that the department has “worked hard” to improve its culture in recent years.
“We continually focus on promoting and implementing initiatives to facilitate a healthy work environment focused on inclusion and equality and are constantly assessing our progress,” Butler said. “We know there is room for improvement and will continue working to move the department forward.”
When the EEOC finds an employee has been discriminated against, it proposes a remedy, known as a “conciliation agreement,” that gives the employer a voluntary opportunity to address the issue. The employer has the right to accept the agreement, reject it or make a counter proposal.
Gillian L. Thomas, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU who is representing the firefighter, said in her experience it is unusual for an employer to reject a conciliation agreement outright. Thomas said they are usually a starting point in negotiations to reach an arrangement acceptable to both sides.
Since Fairfax County has rejected the proposed agreement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) can now pursue civil litigation against the department to seek remediation if it so chooses. A DOJ lawsuit alleging racial and gender discrimination in the department in the late 1970s led to decades of monitoring by a federal judge that only ended late last year. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.
The current case began when the former firefighter was a recruit at the fire academy in 2017, according to her EEOC complaint.
That December, the woman joined other recruits at a fundraising pub crawl at a Reston bar. Captain Jeff Loach, who was an instructor at the academy and secretary of the department’s union at the time, also attended.
According to the former firefighter’s complaint, Loach touched her in an overly familiar way during the course of the evening and told her he had behaved so improperly with another female firefighter that “she could probably own [my] house,” which the woman understood to mean the other female firefighter could have sued him for harassment.
As the woman was leaving the bar, the woman alleged in the complaint, Loach came up behind her and touched her buttocks inappropriately.
Afterward, the woman said Loach laughed and said, “Now if you need any help getting through recruit school, you know who to call,” according to the complaint.
The woman felt she had nowhere to turn about what happened, since Loach was a teacher at the fire academy and he was a top-ranking member of the firefighters’ union, according to her complaint. The woman completed the academy and became a full-time firefighter in March 2018.
In September 2018, the woman was working at the fire academy helping audit tests and assisting with training when Loach approached her and asked if she considered him touching her at the bar an assault, the complaint alleges. The woman replied that she did and Loach walked away, according to the complaint.
About 35 minutes later, the woman got a call from a supervisor telling her she was being reassigned to a job at headquarters, according to the complaint. The complaint further alleges that she was not given a reason and none of her superiors on duty that day knew why she was being transferred.
The woman’s new job consisted of answering a phone that rarely rang and sharpening pencils on one occasion, according to the complaint. The woman was eventually returned to her old job at the fire academy.
She filed the EEOC complaint in October 2018.
Loach and his union, IAFF Local 2068, did not respond to calls, text or email messages requesting comment on the case.
Fairfax County attorneys wrote in their response to the woman’s EEOC filing that she first reported the sexual harassment in September 2018. Fire department supervisors began to immediately investigate what occurred and reported it to a Fairfax County human rights agency.
The fire department probe found Loach was untruthful about what happened and his conduct was unbecoming, while the Fairfax County agency found Loach had touched the woman inappropriately and violated the county’s sexual harassment policy, according to documents filed in the EEOC case.
As a result of the probes, Loach was demoted to a non-officer rank, according to the county’s response to the EEOC complaint. The Fairfax County agency did not find the woman’s transfer was retaliatory. Fire department officials said it was the result of a staffing mix-up.
“The department took immediate action upon being made aware of the incident and followed all relevant policies and procedures which led to an immediate personnel action,” said Tony Castrilli, the director of public affairs for Fairfax County.
The woman disputed in her filings that the department acted quickly to address the issues, saying it took months.
The county argued in response to the woman’s EEOC complaint that it should not be sustained because the window to take action had expired, the alleged sexual harassment occurred at a non-work event and the woman had failed to establish her transfer was retaliatory. The EEOC rejected those arguments.
The Fairfax County fire department has been sued six times for alleged sexual harassment and discrimination since 2005. In 2016, Nicole Mittendorff’s suicide focused scrutiny on the treatment of women in the department. In 2018, one of Fairfax fire’s highest ranking women resigned a post helping other women in the department, saying it tolerated harassment of women.
A review by county officials released in 2018 found the department had problems with leadership, communication and the status of paramedics, but it did not face widespread issues with the treatment of women in its ranks.
Richard Bowers, the fire department’s former chief, retired in 2018 amid turmoil over treatment of women in the department. Butler, the new chief, has promised change.
The former firefighter said that change has yet to materialize for many female firefighters in Fairfax County. Her experiences led her to leave the department in late 2020, taking a large pay cut and losing benefits to start over in a new job.
“It’s upsetting because I had a lot of goals and aspirations to do good work there,” the woman said. “It seemed like a bright future and then it came crashing down.”