Second Employee Suing Janet Napolitano Over Charges of Reverse Sexism

Janet Napolitano.

Following yesterday's reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee James Hayes Jr.'s reserve-sexism lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the New York Post has learned that a second male employee, Jason Mount, filed a similar suit in July. Unlike Hayes, Mount makes no allegations of sexual harassment, but he does complain of gender discrimination at the department, where he claims he was refused an office and subject to "dozens of incidents in which he was allegedly passed over for promotions despite being fully qualified."

Like Hayes, who claims he was passed over for a promotion by Napolitano owing to his gender (in favor of Dora Schriro, with whom Napolitano “enjoyed a longstanding relationship"), Mr. Mount alleges that, despite receiving a perfect evaluation, his gender prevented him from acquiring a post with Homeland Security Investigations in Boston. Instead, the job went to Linda Hunt, though she had lower status on the federal civil-service pay scale and lacked some specific experience that the position requires. In order to escape what he considered a hostile work atmosphere, Mount felt he had to ask to be reassigned, voluntarily taking a demotion in pay and responsibility that he described as "career suicide." Mount is suing for around $300,000 — a tenth of the $3 million Hayes is seeking.

While Napolitano has remained silent and ICE won't comment on this latest case, a federal official did comment on the Hayes case, saying his allegations “do not align with the fact that Mr. Hayes has routinely held high-ranking assignments, including his current position as special agent in charge of ICE’s second-largest field office.”

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News Corp. Would Prefer Its Directors Not Face Charges for Neglect

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service is still looking into charging News Corp. board members with neglect of their duties in the never-ending phone-hacking scandal, the Guardian reports. However: "Company lawyers, fearing a dramatic escalation of the hacking scandal by criminalizing the boards on which Murdoch family members sit, are understood to have protested to the authorities." Pretty please! But even the possibility is enough to officially declare that today is not a good day for the publishing side of things.

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Sergeant Found Not Guilty of Most Serious Charges in Suicide of Pvt. Danny Chen

The first of eight people to be tried by a military court in the suicide of Chinese-American soldier Danny Chen was acquitted today of negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat, and hazing, the New York Times reports. Sergeant Adam Holcomb was found guilty of two lesser counts, including maltreatment and assault. Chen, a 19-year-old from the Lower East Side, was fulfilling a longtime dream by serving in Afghanistan, but died in October of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head while on guard duty after months of torment by his company.

In letters home, Chen chronicled the relentless, and often racist, bullying he faced from other soldiers, hazing that prosecutors argued drove him to commit suicide. "People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time," Chen wrote. "I'm running out of jokes to come back at them." (Jennifer Gonnerman reported on the tragic story for New York in January.)

On the night he died, Chen was made to crawl to a guard tower while being hit with rocks by his superiors because he forgot his water and was not wearing a helmet. In the days prior, according to testimony, he told a fellow soldier that he was thinking about killing himself because of the harsh treatment.

But defense lawyers argued that Chen's problems predated Sergeant Holcomb, concluding in the closing statement, "Private Chen killed Private Chen."

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