Five members of the U.S. House of Representatives renewed their call for an unambiguous statement from the U.S. official responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination statutes within the federal workforce.
The members want to know if the regulations protect workers from sexual orientation discrimination.
Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., George Miller, D-Cal., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., have exchanged correspondence about this point with Scott Bloch, director of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) since February 2004.
The communications started shortly after Bloch ordered that any references to sexual orientation bias within the federal workforce be removed from the department’s web site.
A letter signed by the representatives and dated March 3 was sent to the OSC. In the letter, the politicians noted that Bloch sent a letter dated Sept. 28, 2004, in which he stated that he would answer their question soon. The representatives’ question read: ‘ [I] f an agency of the federal government discriminates against an individual based on his or her sexual orientation, does that violate the law and does that individual have any recourse through [the OSC] ?’