I agree with and applaud both your and Brad's efforts on this story. However, I think there's a more pervasive and significant story underlying. The cutain covering the elitist, we know better than you what's good for you crowd is beginning to fray. Connect the dots of shredding, Tenncare, and ethics, and what begins to emerge is the difficulty of tip toeing through the minefield of the coalition of the careocrat victims(Gordon Bonnyman, et al), the militant feminists, and the race and poverty pimps(John Ford). Particularly delicious is the contortionist act of Verna Wyatt of You Have The Power(Andrea Conte are you satisfied?). Perhaps now some will begin to see the fraud behind the curtain.

There's no scandal to this story. If there were, Schrade would have the victims of these incidents ringing his phone off the wall. As it is, he can't get a peep from them. Why? Because they want to protect their privacy. The same reason the notes were destroyed.

Scott - I thought I recalled that the Tennessean had interviewed one victim, but perhaps not.

In the case of the allegations against Quenton White, the gov's office concluded the allegation was unfounded. That means there is no victim so the logic that the documents were shredded to protect the victim's privacy simply doesn't hold up. No crime, no victim. So who is being protected by shredding the documents?

I can think of several possible reasons that the documents in the Quenton White case might have been shredded, and none of them are very good.

Here's just one: The charge wasn't unfounded, but the victim accepted a deal: payment of some kind, and White's resignation, in exchange for silence, in order to spare the administration a messy public scandal.

It fits the facts (the few facts we have as the document were shredded!) but that doesn't mean it is what happened. Still, as I said in my post, shredding the documents shreds Bredesen's credibility because it means we don't - and never will - have all the facts.

With all due respect, this "story" is a non-story, and IMO is a bunch of media hype created by the _Tennessean_ because sex sells. I work in the field of HR, aka Personnel, and as any HR professional could tell you, an investigation into alleged sexual harassment is always conducted with utmost discretion and secrecy, both to protect the alleged victim, protect any witnesses, and even to protect the alleged perpetrator (who may or not be innocent of the allegations). Any documentation obtained in such an investigation is always treated with utmost secrecy and released to no one without a need-to-know basis unless subpoenaed in court. Try going to any company in Nashville, or anywhere else in the US, and ask their HR department to let you see their records on sexual harassment investigations and see what kind of reception you get. My suggestion is start with the _Tennessean_ since they so loudly advocate the openness of these records!

Ah, but this is state government, and government records should be open for public inspection. Right? So, does that mean state employees should become victims of identity theft (as happened in California) because anyone can access their name and SSN? Does that mean that the victim of harassment should be re-traumatized by having their story told involuntarily to the world simply because they work for the state? Does that mean people who are falsely accused of harassment (and that does happen!) should still have their names dragged through the press (where many will read it with the presumption of guilt until proven innocent) simply because they work for the government and not a private employer? If your answer to all these questions is “yes” then my suggestion is for you go to work for the state.

I may be wrong, and if so I’m sure someone will correct me, but I’m not aware of ANY government body in this country that opens their records of harassment investigations to the public for inspection. Governments treat these documents as limited access as described above for the reasons outlined above, just as all private employers do.

As to the so-called document shredding which Mr. Schrade and the newspaper have so repeatedly screamed about, all I recall is that the attorney who did the investigation took some notes for her own personal use regarding statements the alleged victim made for use when interviewing the alleged perpetrator. She then tore them up when the notes had served their purpose. This is hardly a Watergate cover-up! I seem to recall that attorney documents (their work product) are protected and considered privileged, which is why so many private companies have attorneys do their sexual harassment investigations. Try going to any law firm and ask to see their work product and see what kind of reception you get! I’m guessing that the attorney in this case, knowing that this was a “high profile” investigation and that the press would try exactly what they have done, got rid of the one document when no longer needed to protect all parties concerned. She may have even done so at the request of the alleged victim. This is simply a guess, but the fact that the alleged victim here has yet to come forward and identify him/herself seems to support this theory.

This is why I believe this is an example of the press creating the news purely to sell papers, and that we have all become their victims. You’ve been manipulated by the newspaper!!!

Mike, the corporate angle is a red herring. Government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, for the people," and open to public scrutiny.

Bredesen's government followed one standard for rank-and-file employees and another for his friends. That's wrong, period.

As for the policy of keeping files private to protect the victims, that may be a valid reason in these cases, but shredding documents that should be in the file is NEVER a good policy, and the knowledge that a document has been shredded leads to the inevitable and logical questions "what ELSE have they shredded?" and "what are they hiding?"

In the specific case of former Corrections Commissioner Quenton White, the claim that the documents were shredded to protect the victim is ludicrous and obviously a diversion from something as the administration also says THERE WAS NO VICTIM - the claim was "unfounded."

No harassment, no victim. No victim, no victim needing protection. No reason to shred the documents.

But the documents were shredded anyway.

Why?

And, finally, I'll quote a comment placed here on another entry about the shredding:

Gack! I teach Public Personnel Administration and Administrative Law in an MPA Program. I'm copying this story (with proper accreditation, of course) for inclusion in my files under "things not to do."

While shredding of documents is sometimes appropriate and legal, the circumstances usually dictate at least an indication of why the shredding was deemed so. As one who makes it plain that I *hate* adminstrative paperwork, when I say, "paper trail, paper trail, paper trail" to my students *know* I'm serious.

This looks like a bad breach of policy and perhaps administrative law.

Bill, we may have to agree to disagree on this. While I have no argument with you that most government documents should be open to the people, I still feel it is extremely poor public policy for records of sexual harassment investigations to be open to the public. And regardless of what you or I think SHOULD happen, here is what I predict WILL happen:

1) The Governor, a legislator, or someone will try to have a bill passed to exempt records of this type from the open records law.
2) The bill will fail miserably, because with all the media hype created about this issue, few legislators will be willing to risk the public backlash for anything that even remotely smacks of a cover-up or denying the public its “rights”.
3) With no prospect of being able to file a complaint of harassment without it being done in the spotlight of public scrutiny, this will prompt a sharp increase in complaints of harassment to the EEOC instead. Some of the complaints will undoubtedly be legit, but I wouldn’t put it past some enterprising, hungry attorney to start trolling for even dubious cases like attorneys have done in ADA suits in other states (Florida comes to mind).
4) The EEOC will have to investigate…actually, I think when it comes to governments, the EEOC may have to turn it over to the Department of Justice. In any case, either the EEOC or DOJ will step in and file a suit against the state.
5) From my reading of employment law, both the EEOC and several courts have already found that anything that presents an obstacle for employees filing Title VII complaints (such as sexual harassment) renders the employer’s Title VII policies as non-defensible when it comes to the employer asking for the case to be dismissed, and shifts the burden of proof to the employer to show harassment did not occur. Thus, armed with a “right-to-sue” letter, even dubious cases can proceed to trial in Federal Court which circumvents the state’s claim of sovereign immunity or a monetary cap on liability.
6) After numerous adverse verdicts in Federal Court, which will cost the taxpayers millions, and likely after a suit by DOJ, the state will be forced to sign a consent agreement to remove barriers to employees filing harassment complaints, making these records unavailable to the public.
7) The legislature can breath a sigh of collective relief and tell their constituents they tried, but the Feds made us do this, and blame it on liberal judges.
8) The public will have lost, the taxpayers will have lost, the employees will have lost, but a few attorneys will have had a temporary gold mine.