Why Should Delaware Care?
Governments are among the largest employers in Delaware and how they deal with claims of sexual harassment can determine how well they operate. New Castle County has already dealt with a sexual harassment scandal in recent years as a new case comes forward.
Editor’s note: A New Castle County spokesman sent an email after deadline for this story with answers to a list of questions from Spotlight Delaware. This story has been updated to include those answers.
A New Castle County employee claims in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month that in 2022 human resources officials delayed an investigation into a report that her boss sent a series of unwanted and sexually explicit text messages to her personal phone.
When she asked about the delayed investigation at the time, an HR official indicated that the county had been dealing with a wider harassment problem, telling her that there were “several other similar incidents which took precedence,” according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiff – Susan Oberlander – further claims that county officials had been previously notified about her boss’s harassment of other women, but had taken “no action to stop this conduct.”
In June, Oberlander received a notice from federal discrimination investigators granting her the right to file her claims in court within 90 days. Her subsequent lawsuit landed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware on Aug. 15, just weeks before New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer faces off in a hotly contested primary election to become Delaware’s next governor.
The named defendants in Oberlander’s lawsuit include Meyer, two other county staffers, and New Castle County itself.
In emails to Spotlight Delaware, a county spokesman acknowledged that Oberlander suffered harassment but refuted allegations that there was a wider problem in New Castle County government offices.
He said the county had not been investigating any other sexual harassment claims when Oberlander reported her boss’s conduct, and said the only complaint filed against him came from Oberlander herself.
“Moreover, the investigation into her claim was not delayed,” said the county spokesman, Brian Cunningham. “It takes more time for HR to investigate claims based on conduct that occurs outside of work and outside of work hours.”
Cunningham further stated that Meyer’s inclusion in the case as a defendant was “without merit,” and said the county would be making a motion to remove him and another county official from the case.
With the county denials of many of Oberlander’s assertions, the overall question of whether Meyer oversaw a government with wider harassment problems remains unclear. The he said-she said nature of the lawsuit will likely change as more information is revealed in the future, but that process will not play out before the Sept. 10 primary election.
Last week, the campaign and its surrogates for one of Meyer’s opponents in the governor’s race – Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long – highlighted Oberlander’s claims as an example of what they said is a “gross dereliction of duty and an outright lack of leadership” by Meyer as county executive.
Hall-Long’s campaign also pointed out that Oberlander’s lawsuit follows another high-profile sexual harassment case that plagued county government earlier in Meyer’s tenure as executive.
That case erupted into public view in 2020 after Delaware Online/The News Journal reported that the county police department’s former deputy chief – Lt. Col. Quinton Watson – had harassed several women over multiple decades.
Court documents from a subsequent lawsuit described Watson groping women and sending sexually explicit notes to them. It also said “multiple policy-makers were aware” of his actions over the years, but New Castle County “continued to turn a blind eye.”
Watson retired in 2018. Nevertheless, the womens’ claims, which included allegations of a cover-up, ultimately led to a $1.7 settlement with the county in 2022.
The attorney in that case, Michele Allen, is also representing Oberlander in her lawsuit. Allen did not return a request for comment for this story.
Also in 2022, the county agreed to pay an outside monitor to independently review reports of sexual assault and harassment within its police department.
Though not apparently connected to Oberlander’s claims, the outside monitor was hired two months after Oberlander had allegedly received her first string of sexually explicit texts from her boss, John Farnan, at the county property assessment office.
Those included multiple messages from Farnan stating, “wanna get naked,” among other lewder comments, according to the lawsuit.
Such messages left Oberlander feeling humiliated. They also caused a “derailment of her professional career,” according to the lawsuit.
Meyer’s campaign response
In response to Hall-Long remarks about Oberlander’s case, Meyer’s campaign said in an emailed statement that his opponent is politicizing “incidents that happened long before Matt’s time” – an apparent reference to Watson’s previous decades of harassment.
The campaign’s statement did not directly address Oberlander’s claims.
Cunningham, from the county executive’s office, further asserted that Oberlander’s reports of harassment had been investigated by county officials and resulted in “severe disciplinary action” from its human resources office.
“In fact, an outside monitor working with the County and the Delaware Department of Justice concluded that the County took appropriate action to protect the complainant from further issues with the sanctioned employee,” he said.
In her lawsuit, Oberlander said the county’s sanction of Farnan involved a demotion. But, rather than protect her, the demotion made Farnan and Oberlander co-workers, the lawsuit said.
“Mr. Farnan’s working location remains in close proximity to Plaintiff’s desk and Plaintiff is still subject to continued contact with Mr. Farnan,” the lawsuit claims.
In the county statement, Cunningham again attempted to counter the Oberlander’s assertions regarding Farnan’s punishment, claiming that county officials had ensured that she and Farnan “remain physically separated from each other.”
