Equal Employment Opportunity: NIH's Handling of Alleged Sexual Harassment and Sex Discrimination Matters
Released: 1995-10-17T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Federal employees, by law, are entitled to receive fair and equitable treatment in employment without regard to their sex, among other things. In addition, any federal employee who has the authority to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action is prohibited from discriminating for or against any employees or applicants for employment on the basis of their sex. These rights are set forth in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued regulations recognizing sexual harassment as an unlawful employment practice. Subsequent case law clarified that unlawful sexual harassment exists when unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature are committed as a condition of employment or basis for employment action (“quid pro quo”), or when this conduct creates a hostile work environment. A key word is “unwelcome,” because unlawful sexual harassment may exist when the target perceives that he or she is being harassed, whether or not the perpetrator intended to create a hostile environment. EEOC has the authority to enforce federal sector antidiscrimination laws, issuing rules and regulations as it deems necessary to carry out its responsibilities. It issued revised guidelines for processing EEO complaints, including sexual harassment, that became effective in October 1992.

NIH is one of several Public Health Service agencies within HHS and is the principal biomedical research agency of the federal government. It supports biomedical and behavioral research domestically and abroad, conducts research in its own laboratories and clinics, trains researchers, and promotes the acquisition and distribution of medical knowledge. NIH is made up of 26 ICDs, each of which has its own director and management staff. Its 13,000 employees are primarily located in the Bethesda, Maryland, area.

Objective, Scope, and Methodology

Our objective was to obtain information on the extent and nature of sexual harassment and sex discrimination at NIH, to provide a systematic overview of an issue that had received media attention based on individual allegations. To accomplish this, we reviewed sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints filed by NIH employees and conducted a projectable survey of NIH employees. We also interviewed agency officials at NIH, the Public Health Service, and HHS involved with handling such situations in order to familiarize ourselves with EEO-related activities.

We obtained statistics on formal sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints that were filed between October 1, 1990, and May 31, 1994, and reviewed those complaints filed during this period and subsequently closed. We also reviewed 20 complaints that were handled as part of NIH’s expedited sexual harassment process between September 1, 1992, and May 31, 1994. Under this accelerated procedure, officials from the involved ICD were required to immediately advise OEO officials about any sexual harassment allegations that came to their attention. OEO was then required to complete its inquiry within 2 weeks. NIH’s EEO complaint process is outlined in greater detail in appendix I. We did not compare the number and type of complaints filed by NIH employees with those filed by employees at other governmental institutions.

To obtain an agencywide perspective on the sexual harassment and sex discrimination environment at NIH, we sent questionnaires to a stratified random sample of 4,110 persons who were NIH employees as of the end of fiscal year 1993. We asked these employees for their insights, opinions, and observations (anonymously) about sexual harassment and sex discrimination at NIH as well as their opinions about NIH’s EEO system. The results of our survey, which can be projected to the universe from which it was selected, are shown in their entirety in appendix II. The overall usable response rate was 64.3 percent. The percentages presented in this report are based on the number of NIH employees who responded to the particular question being discussed. Because the survey results come from a sample of NIH employees, all results are subject to sampling errors. For example, the estimate that 32 percent of the employees have experienced sexual harassment is surrounded by a 95 percent confidence interval from 30 to 34 percent. All of the survey results in this report have 95 percent confidence intervals of less than + 5 percent unless otherwise noted. All reported comparisons of female and male responses are statistically significant unless otherwise noted. It should be noted that our questionnaire methodology, which is described in greater detail in appendix III, did not include comparing NIH with other governmental institutions.

We also contacted agency officials at NIH, the Public Health Service, and HHS to obtain estimated costs associated with processing sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints. Information regarding the limited data that were available is covered in appendix IV.

Our work was done at NIH’s Bethesda, Maryland, location from May 1993 to May 1995, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

We requested comments from the Secretary, HHS; the Assistant Secretary for Health, HHS; and the Director, NIH on a draft of this report. Their consolidated comments are discussed on p. 16 and presented in appendix V.

Almost One-Third of NIH Employees Alleged Sexual Harassment, but Few Filed Complaints

Approximately 32 percent of NIH employees reported that they were the recipients of some type of uninvited, unwanted sexual attention in the past year, and employees filed 32 informal complaints and 20 formal complaints with NIH’s OEO between October 1990 and May 1994. These complaints were filed primarily by female employees. Closed formal complaints we reviewed overwhelmingly identified immediate supervisors and/or management officials as the alleged harassers. However, employees in general did not consider these groups to be the only sources of sexual harassment at NIH. Coworkers and contractors were also identified as alleged harassers. Actions reportedly taken most often by sexually harassed employees to deal with their situations included ignoring the situation or doing nothing, avoiding the harasser, asking/telling the harasser to stop the offensive behavior, discussing the situation with a coworker and/or asking the coworker to help, or making a joke of the situation.

Over 96 percent of NIH employees who said they were sexually harassed reported that they decided not to file complaints or take some other personnel action. Some of the more prevalent reasons employees gave for choosing not to file EEO complaints, grievances, or adverse action appeals were that (1) they did not consider the incident to be serious enough, (2) they wanted to deal with it themselves, and/or (3) they decided to ignore the incident. Also, some of the employees who chose not to file complaints believed the situation would not be kept confidential, the harasser would not be punished, filing a complaint would not be worth the time or cost, and/or that they would be retaliated against.

Although it remains small as a proportion of the workforce, the number of EEO complaints filed by NIH employees alleging sexual harassment has increased in recent years. Of the 20 formal complaints filed between October 1, 1990, and May 31, 1994, none were filed in fiscal year 1991; 4 and 7 were filed in fiscal years 1992 and 1993, respectively; and 9 were filed during the first 8 months of fiscal year 1994.

Although 53 percent of employees reported they thought NIH did a somewhat good to very good job taking action against employees who engage in sexual harassment, about 27 percent of employees reported they thought NIH did a somewhat poor to very poor job. (See app. II, p. 31.) Our review of sexual harassment complaint files and statistics showed that no determinations or findings of sexual harassment had been made on formal EEO complaints filed by NIH employees that were closed between October 1991 and May 1994. It should be noted, however, that actions could be and have been taken against alleged harassers without a formal admission that harassment actually occurred.

For the most part, employees reported they believed NIH was doing a good job of informing them about the nature of sexual harassment, the policies and procedures prohibiting it, and the penalties for those who engage in sexual harassment. NIH also got good reviews from its employees for encouraging them to contact ICD EEO officers and/or OEO regarding any sexual harassment concerns. Only 5.5 percent of employees viewed sexual harassment to be more of a problem at NIH than it was a year earlier, and 34.5 percent of the employees did not perceive sexual harassment to be a problem at all at NIH. However, many employees perceived NIH as doing a poor job of counseling victims of sexual harassment (20.8 percent), preventing reprisal/retaliation for reporting sexual harassment (22.2 percent), and taking action against those who harassed others (26.9 percent).

With regard to their respective ICDs, 2.3 percent of the employees believed the problem had become more serious while 52.2 percent of employees did not consider sexual harassment to be a problem at their ICDs. (See table 1.) Two-thirds of the employees—67.1 percent—believed enough was being done by NIH to eliminate sexual harassment. This sentiment was echoed by 72.3 percent of employees about their respective ICDs and 74.7 percent of employees about their immediate supervisors. (See app. II, p. 23.)

Women reported being harassed more often than men (37.7 percent compared to 23.8 percent), and women employees at NIH perceived sexual harassment to be a more serious problem than did men (21.3 percent compared to 8.2 percent). Male and female employees who said they experienced sexual harassment indicated that most of the uninvited, unwanted sexual attention consisted of gossip regarding people’s sexual behavior; sexual jokes, remarks, and teasing; and negative sexual remarks about a group (e.g., women, men, homosexuals). For the most part, employees reported that it was instigated by coworkers, supervisors, and/or contractors who worked on the NIH campus. Very few employees said that the sexual harassment they experienced included receiving or being shown nude or sexy pictures (4.8 percent); being pressured for a date (4 percent); receiving requests or being pressured for sexual favors (1.5 percent); receiving letters, phone calls, or other material of a sexual nature (1.4 percent); and threatened, attempted, or actual rape or sexual assault (0.4 percent). The employees who made these claims also said these situations had not occurred repeatedly—once or twice during the last year. (See app. II, p. 25.)

While Fewer Employees Alleged Sex Discrimination, Nonreporting Was Still a Significant Problem

Thirteen percent of NIH employees indicated to us that they believed they had experienced sex discrimination over the last 2 years. Of the 13 percent, approximately half chose to take some type of action regarding their situation. Many of these employees said they came forward and discussed their experiences with an EEO official, their immediate supervisor, and/or some other non-EEO official. However, about 10 percent of employees who alleged discrimination reported that they took the next step and filed an EEO complaint, grievance, or adverse action appeal with the appropriate NIH office. Some of the more prevalent reasons why employees chose not to file actions were concerns that they would not be treated fairly, that filing a complaint would not be worth the time or cost, that they would be retaliated against, that the situation was not serious enough, and/or that the situation would not be kept confidential. Many employees also decided to ignore the situation or to try to deal with their situations themselves.

Between October 1990 and May 1994, 209 informal and 111 formal sex discrimination complaints were filed by female and male employees at NIH. Formal complaints that were closed during this time period were filed for multiple reasons, the most common being nonselection for promotion, lack of promotion opportunity, and objection to job evaluation ratings. The alleged discriminators were people with authority over the complainants and could therefore alter the conditions under which the complainants worked.

Within NIH, more than half of the women employees (58.4 percent) said they believed the current sex discrimination situation to be as much of a problem as it was 1 year earlier, and 37 percent of the men said the same. Although the percentages were small, a larger percentage of men (7.2 percent) than women (6.1 percent) considered the problem to be at least somewhat worse. Also, 30.6 percent of male employees did not perceive sex discrimination to be a problem at NIH, a belief echoed by only 17.6 percent of female employees. (See fig. 1.)

Men and women were divided, even within their own gender groups, in their belief as to whether NIH was doing enough to eliminate sex discrimination in the workplace. While the majority of men believed NIH was doing enough (71 percent), a number of men disagreed (17 percent). Women’s views were also divided—about 48 percent of the women expressed the view that NIH was doing enough to eliminate sex discrimination, but 33 percent disagreed.

Many NIH employees reported they believed women and men were not given comparable opportunities and rewards at their ICDs. Approximately one out of five employees (20.2 percent) did not believe that women and men at NIH were paid the same for similar work or that men and women were formally recognized for similar performance at the same rate (19.7 percent). Nearly one out of three employees (30.1 percent) reported they did not believe men and women were promoted at the same rate when they had similar qualifications. A number of employees also reported they observed that women and men at NIH did not have similar opportunities for visibility (15.5 percent) or similar success finding mentors (22.8 percent), nor did they get equally desirable assignments (19.0 percent). About 44 percent of the employees reported they believed family responsibilities kept women at NIH from being considered for advancement more than they did for men and about 50 percent expressed the view that an “old boy network” prevented women at NIH from advancing in their careers. For each of these topics, female employees responded more strongly than their male counterparts, and the differences in their responses are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level.

About 35 percent of employees reported they thought NIH did a somewhat poor to very poor job taking action against employees who engaged in sex discrimination. Our review of sex discrimination complaint files and statistics showed that no determinations or findings of sex discrimination had been made on formal EEO complaints filed by NIH employees that were closed between October 1991 and May 1994. It should be noted, however, that actions could be and have been taken against alleged discriminators without a formal admission that discrimination actually occurred.

NIH Has Taken Steps to Improve Its EEO Climate, but More Could Be Done

Although the management of NIH is highly decentralized, with each ICD largely responsible for its own management, the controversies that emerged in 1991 and 1992 over sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination were directed at the NIH Director, who was expected to address them on an agencywide basis. Partly in response to these controversies, NIH management has, in recent years, taken actions aimed at improving the agency’s EEO climate. Beginning with the fiscal year 1993 rating period, EEO became a critical element on managerial performance ratings and can have an impact on overall ratings and determinations of pay increases. NIH management also issued policy statements to employees and managers expressing its commitment to a discrimination-free environment.

Several employee task forces were also established at NIH, such as the Task Force on Intramural Women Scientists and the Task Force on Fair Employment Practices. These groups, respectively, addressed issues such as differences in pay and status between male and female scientists with comparable backgrounds and experiences and improvements for processing reprisal complaints (the latter has been incorporated into NIH EEO policy). NIH officials recently conceded that pay discrepancies exist between male and female scientists, and they are acting to bring female scientists’ salaries in line with those of their male peers within their respective ICDs.

An EEO hotline was operational from June 1993 through April 1994 to permit employees to call in and informally report EEO situations they were uncomfortable about. ICD officials were responsible for preparing reports about these inquiries.

NIH management’s actions to better its EEO climate appear to have been positive ones. However, in light of the history of controversy surrounding EEO issues at NIH and the public focus of those issues on the office of the NIH Director, our review suggested additional steps that could be taken to further improve the environment and to provide information to the NIH Director to assist him in ensuring that the EEO climate continues to improve and problems are addressed as they emerge.

Time Frames for Processing Complaints Are Not Being Met

NIH and HHS have been unsuccessful at meeting time frame requirements for processing sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints filed by NIH employees. Federal regulations generally require that an agency provide the complainant with a completed investigative report within 180 days of accepting a formal complaint. Of the 119 formal sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints filed between October 1, 1990, and March 31, 1994, 63 were still open as of April 30, 1995. All of these cases had been open for more than 1 year. Of the 56 cases that were closed by the end of April 1995, only 19 were closed within 180 days of the date the complaint was filed. Twenty-five of them were open for more than 1 year before being closed. (See fig. 2.)

NIH Does Not Assess Its Overall Sexual Harassment and Sex Discrimination Climate

Responses to our questionnaire indicated that although about 32 percent of NIH employees said they experienced sexual harassment and approximately 13 percent said they believed they were discriminated against because of their sex, substantially fewer employees reported to NIH that they had experienced such situations. The limited reliability of complaint data in assessing the overall climate of an agency, along with the independent nature of the ICDs, makes it difficult for NIH management to assess the sexual harassment and sex discrimination environment. Agencywide information on how employees view these issues would aid management in making such an assessment; however, such information currently is not being collected.

NIH Has Limited Information About ICD Educational Offerings

Through EEO training, attempts were made by NIH to educate employees about what actions or behaviors constitute sexual harassment and sex discrimination, how to prevent such situations, and what recourse employees have to deal with them. Many of the issues surrounding sexual harassment involve dealing with people, such as being sensitive to others in the workplace, being able to confront someone tactfully, treating people fairly, and maintaining a professional atmosphere. Some employees may actually be unaware that their actions are perceived by others as sexual harassment. Some employees may not realize that the actions of others are in fact sexual harassment and/or sex discrimination and that they do not have to tolerate these actions.

Within NIH, the ICDs have been delegated the authority to develop and provide their own EEO training programs relating to preventing sexual harassment and sex discrimination. OEO has not monitored the quality, consistency, or frequency of the training provided to individual employees, nor has it provided agencywide criteria regarding the content of the courses provided or which employees should be required to attend.

We contacted 10 of NIH’s 26 ICDs about their EEO training efforts. These ICDs employed over 9,200 people, or about 71 percent of NIH’s full-time permanent staff, and varied in size from 150 to over 2,000 employees. All 10 ICDs offered some form of sexual harassment prevention training. Six ICDs required all of their employees to receive such training, three ICDs required this training only for managers and supervisors, and one ICD had no attendance requirements. Most of the ICDs chose either to conduct their own training sessions or to have OEO conduct the training. In a few cases, the training was developed and/or presented by contractors. Five of the ICDs offered sexual harassment prevention training as recently as fiscal year 1994. However, one ICD last offered training in fiscal year 1991. The training sessions generally ranged from 2 to 4 hours.

None of the ICDs reported offering training that specifically dealt with preventing sex discrimination. Any such training was to have been included with other training. As with the sexual harassment prevention training, the EEO training varied in length, recency (from fiscal year 1991 to fiscal year 1994), source of design, and target audience. Three of the 10 ICDs we contacted required their managers and supervisors to attend.

Even though OEO did not provide standardized, scheduled training for NIH employees or maintain any data on the training provided to them by their respective ICDs, many employees considered themselves to be well informed about sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Most employees reported they believed that NIH did a somewhat good to very good job informing them about current policies and procedures prohibiting sexual harassment (85.9 percent) and behaviors or actions that constitute sexual harassment (80.0 percent). Similarly, a majority of employees also reported they believed that NIH did a somewhat good to very good job informing them about the penalties for those who engage in sexual harassment (63.1 percent).

A large majority of employees reported they believed that NIH did a somewhat good to very good job informing them about current policies and procedures prohibiting sex discrimination (72.7 percent) and behaviors or actions that constitute sex discrimination (67.3 percent). However, about one out of four employees (24.9 percent) stated that NIH did a somewhat poor to very poor job of informing them about the penalties for those who engage in sex discrimination. Overall, 65.2 percent of NIH employees reported they believed NIH did a somewhat good to very good job informing them about their rights and responsibilities under federal government EEO regulations. They were less positive in their beliefs about how well NIH informed them about the roles of EEO officials, counselors, and investigators (51.9 percent good, 26.7 percent poor) and about the various complaint channels open to them (53.6 percent good, 26.2 percent poor). Employees also believed NIH did a somewhat better job of helping managers/supervisors develop an awareness of and skills in handling EEO problems (63.0 percent good, 20.9 percent poor) than it did for employees (53.2 percent good, 25.2 percent poor).

OEO Does Not Track ICDs’ Resolution of EEO Situations

At NIH, we found no agencywide record maintenance or tracking of problem areas or trends for situations handled at the ICD level. NIH management empowered the ICDs with responsibility for resolving situations in the hopes that their early resolution would prevent barriers from being created that would hinder productivity and/or cause employees to remain in hostile work environments for unnecessarily long periods of time. Regarding alleged sex discrimination, employees had the option of contacting the EEO officer in their respective ICDs to try to resolve their situations before filing a complaint with OEO. We found that ICD officials were not required to notify OEO officials of any recurring problems, behavioral patterns, or trends they identified when dealing with employees’ concerns about sex discrimination, thus depriving OEO officials and NIH employees of an overview of NIH’s EEO environment.

Conclusions

While most NIH employees do not perceive sexual harassment and sex discrimination to be serious problems at NIH, and the number of those who believe progress has been made outweighs those who do not, a significant minority of NIH employees are still clearly concerned about the continuing existence of sexual harassment and sex discrimination at their agency. In order for NIH efforts against sexual harassment and sex discrimination to be successful, employees need to trust that the processes established for dealing with their concerns about sexual harassment and sex discrimination will produce results in a timely manner. To date, NIH and HHS have not met time frames established by federal regulations in handling many of the formal complaints filed by NIH employees.

Because of the number of independent organizations operating under the NIH structure and the absence of reliable indicators on the extent to which sexual harassment and sex discrimination are occurring, we believe that looking at the agency “as a whole” could enable NIH to better determine the overall state of its sexual harassment and sex discrimination situations. Such an overall assessment would also provide agencywide information for the NIH Director to permit him to identify the existence of emerging EEO problems and to resolve them more expeditiously. For example, periodically using an NIH employee attitude questionnaire, such as the one we developed, would assist NIH in identifying problems that have occurred or acknowledging any progress that has been made in dealing with such situations.

NIH has attempted to deal with employee concerns about sexual harassment and sex discrimination by increasing awareness about workplace relationships and improving agencywide communication through training. However, we noted that NIH lacks minimum standards with regard to course content and has not communicated its expectations on which employees should receive such training and on how frequently it should be provided. Moreover, NIH has not monitored training to ensure that its expectations regarding such training are being fulfilled.

Recommendations

We recommend that the Secretary of HHS and the Director of NIH take steps to decrease the time it takes to process and resolve sexual harassment and sex discrimination complaints at NIH. In addition, because the Director is responsible for ensuring an appropriate EEO climate throughout NIH despite the decentralized management structure and practices of the agency, we also recommend that he take further steps to provide guidance for and monitoring of the agency’s EEO program. In doing so, we recommend he consider such steps as periodically conducting an employee attitude survey, such as the one we developed, so that the existence of sexual harassment and sex discrimination trends and problems can be more easily identified and dealt with; and establishing minimum standards for sexual harassment and sex discrimination-related training offered to NIH employees as well as procedures for monitoring the implementation of the training to ensure that employees participate as intended.

Agency Comments

We requested comments from the Secretary, HHS; the Assistant Secretary for Health, HHS; and the Director, NIH on a draft of this report. The Department responded with consolidated comments, which are presented in appendix V. The Department concurred with each of our recommendations and indicated that steps are under way to implement them. We believe that the steps outlined in the Department’s letter, if successfully implemented, will achieve the objective of our recommendations.

As agreed with you, unless you publicly release its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from its issue date. At that time, we will provide copies to the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services; the Director, National Institutes of Health; and the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee on Civil Service, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Copies will also be made available to others upon request.

The major contributors to this report are listed in appendix VI. If you have any questions about the report, please call me on (202) 512-8676.

NIH’s EEO Complaint Process

Federal regulations (29 C.F.R. Part 1614) state that agencies should provide prompt, fair, and impartial processing of EEO complaints, including those related to sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The federal EEO complaint filing process consists of two phases, informal and formal. Figure I.1 details the process and the time frames stated in the regulations. Once an employee has exhausted all options available through this process, he/she can appeal to the EEOC and/or through the court system.

An NIH employee who believes he/she has been sexually harassed or discriminated against because of his/her sex can seek advice or assistance from various sources before filing an informal complaint. A supervisor or other management official can initially become involved to assist in resolving the situation at an early stage, or the employee can go directly to the EEO officer at the ICD where he/she works. If the situation cannot be resolved, or if the employee chooses not to have ICD officials address the situation, an informal complaint can be filed with NIH’s OEO. An employee who believes he/she has been sexually harassed or discriminated against because of his/her sex has 45 days from the alleged event to file an informal complaint with the OEO. An OEO-appointed counselor is allotted 30 days to attempt to resolve the matter by contacting employees associated with the situation.

If the situation is not resolved within 30 days from the start of counseling (and the involved parties have not agreed to an extension), the complainant is to be given a counselor’s inquiry report and notified of the right to file a formal complaint within 15 days with HHS’s Office of Human Relations. HHS has responsibility for deciding whether to accept a complaint, hiring investigators, determining whether sexual harassment or sex discrimination has occurred, and arranging settlements. An accepted formal complaint is investigated by an independent contractor. The agency has 180 days to complete the investigation and provide the complainant with a report. If the complainant is not satisfied with the results of the investigative report, he/she is given appeal rights and has 30 days (from receipt) to request a hearing from the EEOC or an agency decision from HHS.

National Institutes of Health Employee Survey

Congress has requested that the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), an independent agency of Congress, review the extent and type of sexual harassment and sex discrimination that may be happening at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). To do this, we are surveying a randomly selected sample of NIH employees.

This questionnaire asks about your experiences at NIH and your opinions about NIH’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) system, including the EEO complaint process.

The responses of all NIH employees included in our sample are very important in order for us to accurately measure the occurrence of sexual harassment and sex discrimination at NIH. Because these are sensitive topics, the survey is anonymous. We cannot identify you from this questionnaire.

If you have any questions, please call Ms. Jan Bogus at (202) 512-8557 or Ms. Annette Hartenstein at (202) 512-5724.

With your help, we will be able to identify the problems that affect NIH employees and recommend solutions.

The results will be presented in summary form. Any discussion of individual answers will not contain information that can identify you.

Thank you for your help.

To ensure your privacy, please return the postcard separately from the questionnaire. This will let us know that you completed your questionnaire.

This section asks about sexual harassment. Sexual harassment involves uninvited, unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other comments, physical contacts, or gestures of a sexual nature. Such actions may negatively affect one’s career and may create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment. 1. As far as you are aware, is sexual harassment currently a problem at NIH and at your institute, center, or division? (Check one box in each row.) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (N=4,161) b. At your institute, center, or (N=1,477)

Survey Notes

Note 1: All “Ns” (number in the population) are estimates based on appropriately weighting the sample results.

Note 2: For questions in the matrix format, all percentages are based on those who chose a response other than “No basis to judge.”

Note 3: For questions in the matrix format, the “Ns” to the left of the first percentage represent the estimated size of the population who responded with a basis to judge. The “Ns” to the right of the last percentage represent the estimated size of the population who responded with “No basis to judge.”

Questionnaire Objective, Scope, and Methodology

The objective of our questionnaire survey was to obtain information on the extent and type of sexual harassment and sex discrimination that may be happening at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Using mail questionnaires, we asked about the general climate at NIH regarding sexual harassment and sex discrimination and specifically about the occurrence of behaviors at NIH that respondents considered to be instances of sexual harassment and about the occurrence of situations at NIH that respondents considered to be instances of sex discrimination. For those who indicated that they believed sexual harassment was directed toward them, we inquired about what the respondent did to deal with the situation. We asked a set of similar questions to see how individuals dealt with sex discrimination when it affected them. We also asked for respondents’ views on NIH’s equal employment opportunity (EEO) system and asked some general questions about the respondents’ work setting and background. Due to the sensitive nature of the information we required, the questionnaire was anonymous. It did not contain any information that could identify an individual respondent. A postcard containing an identification number was included in the package sent to NIH employees. The postcard was to be mailed back to GAO separately from the questionnaire. Receipt of the postcard allowed us to remove names from our mailing list. The questionnaire was first mailed in early January 1994. In late February, we sent out a follow-up mailing, which contained another questionnaire to those in our sample who did not respond to our first mailing. In mid-April, we sent a letter to those who still had not yet responded, urging them to take part in the survey.

The questionnaire was designed by a social science survey specialist in conjunction with GAO evaluators who were knowledgeable about the subject matter. We pretested the questionnaire with 15 NIH employees from a number of occupational categories before mailing to help ensure that our questions were interpreted correctly and that the respondents were willing to provide the information required. After the questionnaires were received from survey respondents, they were edited and then sent to be keypunched. All data were double keyed and verified during data entry. The computer program used in the analysis also contained consistency checks.

Sampling Methodology

Our study population represents the approximately 13,000 white-collar employees at NIH and excludes staff fellows and contract employees. Since NIH is composed of 26 institutes, centers, and divisions (ICD), we wanted the results of our survey to provide specific estimates for the 5 largest ICDs and a general estimate for the remaining 21 ICDs. In addition, we wanted to look specifically at the experiences of male and female employees in the five largest ICDs and in the other ICDs as a whole. We asked NIH to provide us with a computer file containing the names and home addresses of all NIH employees. From this list, we deleted staff fellows and “blue collar” employees. We used standard statistical techniques to select a stratified random sample from this universe of names. The sample contained 4,110 employees of the universe of 13,473 employees. Table III.1 presents the universe and sample sizes for each stratum.

Because this survey selected a portion of the universe for review, the results obtained are subject to some uncertainty or sampling error. The sampling error consists of two parts: confidence level and range. The confidence level indicates the degree of confidence that can be placed in the estimates derived from the sample. The range is the upper and lower limit between which the actual universe estimate may be found. For example, if all female employees of the Clinical Center had been surveyed, the chances are 19 out of 20 that the results obtained would not differ from our sample estimates by more than 5 percent.

Questionnaire Response Rates

Not all NIH employees who were sent questionnaires returned them. Of the 4,110 NIH employees who were sent questionnaires, 2,642 returned usable ones to us, an overall usable response rate of 64.3 percent. Table III.2 summarizes the questionnaire returns for the 4,110 questionnaires mailed.

The usable response rates for the individual stratum range from 49.5 to 77 percent. Table III.3 presents the response rates for each stratum.

Estimates From the Sample Results

Given our overall response rate of 64.3 percent, we wanted to get some indication that the 35.7 percent of our sample that did not respond to our survey were generally similar in their experiences regarding sexual harassment and sex discrimination to those who did respond to the survey. To find this out, in June 1994 we conducted a small-scale, nonstatistical telephone survey of 41 NIH employees who were in our sample but did not respond to the questionnaire. We asked these individuals two questions that were included in the questionnaire. The first was the extent to which they believed sexual harassment was a problem at NIH as a whole and at their ICD. The second was a similar question regarding sex discrimination. Although these 41 employees perceived less sexual harassment and sex discrimination than did the 2,642 employees that responded earlier, the differences in their perceptions were not statistically significant. We decided to not modify the main survey results on the basis of the 41 telephone respondents’ views because the telephone respondents did not form a statistically representative sample and the observed differences were not statistically significant.

The 2,642 usable returned questionnaires have been weighted to represent the study population of 13,473 white-collar employees at NIH (excluding staff fellows and contract employees). The weighted total population size for the sample was slightly different (13,460) due to rounding errors introduced in the sample weighting process.

Because we sampled a portion of NIH employees, our survey results are estimates of all employees’ views and are subject to sampling error. For example, the estimate that 32 percent of the employees have experienced sexual harassment is surrounded by a 95 percent confidence interval of + 2 percent. This confidence interval thus indicates that there is about a 95-percent chance that the actual percentage falls between 30 and 34 percent. All of the survey results in this report have 95 percent confidence intervals of less than + 5 percent unless otherwise noted.

Nonsampling Errors

In addition to the reported sampling errors, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey may introduce other types of errors, commonly referred to as nonsampling errors. For example, differences in how a particular question is interpreted, in the sources of information that are available to respondents, or in the types of people who do not respond can introduce unwanted variability into the survey results. We included steps in the development of the questionnaire, the data collection, and data analysis for minimizing such nonsampling errors. These steps have been mentioned in various sections of this appendix.

Cost of Handling Complaints

There are many different levels at which an EEO situation can be handled before and during the actual EEO complaint process. Employees can involve supervisors and/or other management officials; institute, center, or division (ICD) EEO officers; and others in the pursuit of resolution before filing informal complaint paperwork with NIH’s Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO).

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials estimated the cost of processing an informal complaint in NIH’s OEO during fiscal year 1994 to be about $860. If the complaint is not resolved and the employee chooses to file a formal complaint with HHS, an additional $8,700 in costs could be borne by HHS’ Office of Human Relations and NIH’s OEO. This includes the cost of an investigation, which HHS contracts out to an investigative firm.

The procedures for handling sexual harassment complaints differ from those established for handling other types of EEO complaints. In order to speed up the process, an investigation is contracted for when an informal complaint has been filed. This shifts the costs for the investigation from the formal to the informal stage. An HHS official said that under this process, total costs (informal and formal) can range from $10,225 to $11,825. Our work did not include an analysis of the difference in cost between the two approaches.

It should be noted that these cost estimates cannot be applied to all cases. Each case is unique—a complaint can be resolved at any step in the process or it may involve others outside of the normal EEO process. Also, none of these estimates include costs accrued at the ICD level, lost work time, settlement costs, complaints pursued through processes other than EEO (i.e., grievances), and costs that go beyond the formal complaint stage.

NIH attorneys can become involved if the employee chooses NIH’s alternative dispute resolution process before filing an informal complaint. However, the employee can later file an informal complaint if he/she is not satisfied with the outcome. NIH attorneys are also involved in EEO complaints that are appealed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Office of Federal Operations if the complainant is not satisfied with the outcome of the formal complaint stage. HHS attorneys and Justice Department officials defend NIH if the complainant decides to appeal the case beyond the EEOC to the court system.

Comments From the Department of Health and Human Services

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