California’s state Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) says it’s committed to creating safe, harassment-free workplaces. Now it’s the department itself that’s doing the harassing.
DFEH was built to mediate disagreements between workers and business owners. These days, the agency goes direct to warfare – hiring private law firms to sue California companies and funding its operations from the resulting million-dollar settlements. That strategy often deprives plaintiffs of the money you might suppose they’re entitled to.
All of this is clear in the department’s high-profile, ongoing case against Santa Monica-based Activision, the company behind such global games as “World of Warcraft,” “Call of Duty,” and “Overwatch.”
Following a lengthy investigation, DFEH sued the video game maker in July for a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture” that DFEH says drove female employees to quit. Two months later, Activision settled a separate lawsuit with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by agreeing to establish an $18 million fund for alleged victims.
That’s when things got weird – California weird.
Alleging that Gov. Gavin Newsom was interfering with her lawsuit, Janette Wipper, the Chief Counsel for the DFEH, resigned from the case against Activision. Newsom fired her. Then Wipper’s deputy resigned, claiming interference by the governor.
But a deeper read of the roster changes at DFEH suggests a department that has gone rogue and a governor...
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