La. settles federal lawsuit over sexual harassment

The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections has agreed to modify its sexual harassment policies and training as part of a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which accused the state department of discriminating against an employee who complained that a supervisor sexually assaulted her. The settlement agreement also resolves a lawsuit that the Justice Department’s civil rights division filed against the department in New Orleans. The suit says a supervisor subjected the woman, an office administrator for the department’s Probation and Parole district office in Thibodaux, to sexual harassment that escalated from inappropriate comments and touching to sexual assault. The Justice Department says at least four other department employees, including a part-time internal affairs investigator, knew about her harassment claims but didn’t report it. Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokeswoman Pam Laborde says agency officials were “very quick and very swift to act” once the woman’s allegations were reported to them. The department agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the woman, who was not identified. The supervisor who allegedly harassed the woman resigned in December 2008 before a disciplinary hearing, according to the suit.