The Gropinator's Other Sexual Harassment Problem
Q: With sexual harassment prevention on "opinion-only" status, are DCA
employees free to define for themselves what a harassment-free workplace
looks like? What does a sexually harassed DCA employee do when her
assailant claims that, without any guidance, he didn't know he was doing
anything wrong?
A: Arnold's sweeping Executive Order didn't just toss out sexual harassment policies. The DCA's discrimination policy was cited as another underground regulation. So was the agency's commitment to increasing the number of contracts it awards to small businesses and business enterprises run by disabled veterans. There are, no doubt, hundreds more of these simple, but important rules, procedures and systems that Arnold's Order has unnecessarily undermined. Whether hamstringing state agencies was pre-meditated or just a colossal blunder, Arnold should head back to Sacramento and fix this problem. In November, the governor issued Executive Order No. 2, which requires the review of all pending regulations, forces state agencies to do their job twice and gives big companies a reprieve on consumer and environmental protection laws. A less heralded section of that order -- Paragraph 2 -- was stealthier, but may do even more to bring the normal operation of the state to a halt. Paragraph 2 calls on every state agency to identify "any guideline, criterion, bulletin, manual, instruction, order, or standard of general