On Monday, Winnebago County Sheriff Richard Meyers said he agreed with the characterization that sexually explicit e-mails in his department in 2007 did not rise to the level of sexual harassment.
“The big difference between the situation Sgt. Booker finds himself in and these e-mails is that no one ever complained,” Meyers said.
Tuesday, the sheriff again backed the determination of his chief deputy, Kurt Ditzler, who said the 2007 e-mails were not sexual harassment.
“People can second-guess and they might not agree with our response, but it’s our job to make those decisions and we did,” Meyers said.
Then on Wednesday, Meyers told the Register Star’s Editorial Board that, yes, the images that made their way into and through the sheriff’s department did constitute sexual harassment, and there should have been more severe punishment.
“We should have done things a lot differently. I wish I could go back and change that, but I can’t,” Meyers said.
In his conversation with the Edit Board, captured here in live time Twitter updates, and here in a story from today’s newspaper by Mike Wiser, the sheriff described the images in the e-mails as “disgusting.”
The sheriff also pledged to increase awareness of sexual harassment within his ranks through more training, to work with the county’s HR department to strengthen the department’s policy, and to look for ways to bring in outside expertise to determine policy violations.
All moves in the right direction. Hopefully, everyone outside of the sheriff’s department is watching closely. More awareness of what is sexual harassment and how to stop it, raised by this e-mail fiasco, can only help.
Jeff Kolkey is writing today about the Winnebago County Sheriff’s election and how the element’s of Sgt. Aaron Booker’s Merit Commission hearing and Sheriff’ Richard Meyers handling of sexually explicit e-mails have overtaken the campaign.
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Sorry to go off-topic, but are you planning to discuss the firing of Juan Williams, by NPR?
Back to the topic: The politics being practiced in the sheriff’s race seems every bit as “dirty”, as those e-mails.
I think Juan Williams’ firing by NPR is disgusting. After all the work he’s done to advance civil rights and document it in “Eyes on the Prize,” and other works, to dismiss him for some frank, candid comments on O’Reilly’s show is cowardly on NPR’s part.
I think they were looking for a reason to can Juan because they were extremely irritated that he was also working for Fox News Channel, where Williams does an excellent job challenging the prevailing rightwing views of that network.
I wonder if Mara Liasson, another NPR star who doubles as a Fox analyst for Fox, will be next to go?
SNuss, I’ll the commenting on Juan Williams to Chuck. I think he handled it nicely.
Sorry, left out the word “leave.” I’ll leave it to Chuck. How about that?
I agree fully with Chuck. I also find it at least equally disgusting that our tax dollars subsidize an obviously Far-Left biased organization, like NPR. Why is it that these Liberals, who constantly preach the virtues of “tolerance”, are themselves so intolerant of opposing views?
Hey Chuck,we have been saying you should man-up and RESIGN. go read your old column about white arizona and other items!!Would you ever consider reading your own column?? PLS RESIGN MR. SWEENEY