2018 Lawsuit against NPCA (publicly available)
District of Columbia Superior Court (dccourts.gov).
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2021 Complaint to the NPCA Board of Directors of Gender Discrimination and Remedial Measures
The complaint was submitted with attachments of a six-page timeline of events and seven pages of written examples.
A Selection of Examples:
September 2019: Toxic/Hostile Environment - A female NPCA employee living in a different city was visiting Washington DC and the NPCA office for the first time as she just started her employment and was required to spend her first to weeks of employment in DC. Glenn (President and CEO), her supervisor, suggested she stay at his house during her visit, which is a 45-minute drive from the office and not accessible by public transportation. She felt uncomfortable, declined to stay there, and found an Airbnb in the city. This offer was made without an organizational policy around homestays to protect the wellbeing of staff, and was made without an alternative offer to pay for her accommodation while in town. She paid for the Airbnb with her own funds, despite being in town for the sole purpose of working with NPCA.
February 2020: Toxic/Hostile Environment - A female employee asked Glenn (President and CEO) to speak to her differently, as the way he communicated with her made her uncomfortable. Glenn responded defensively and escalated the conversation arguing that the female employee was wrong, and eventually told her that "she was too sensitive," suggesting that she was the problem and the only solution was that she needed to change.
June 2020: Disparate treatment of female and male employees and community members - A female employee was required by Glenn (President and CEO) to speak with Dawn Cacciotti, NPCA’s Human Resources Consultant, when she stated in an email conversation about systemic racism that there is systemic racism within NPCA. In that conversation with HR, with Glenn and Anne Baker (Vice President) present, the female staff member was questioned extensively about the comment and experienced repeated attempts by Glenn during the conversation to get her to admit she said something she didn't. In contrast, a male employee under the supervision of Steven Saum, Director of Strategic Communications, was not disciplined or counseled when he called out sexism at NPCA during a staff meeting.
January 2021: Disparate treatment of female and male employees and community members - Thomas Baranyi, an RPCV, recently plead guilty to being in the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. At the time, community members were very upset that an RPCV was involved in that. In the NPCA staff meeting, Glenn defended him saying he’s someone "who has lost his way" and "we should try to understand where he came from to get where he is". Glenn was not equally forgiving to people of color or women in the months prior regarding racism in the Peace Corps community.
February/March 2021: Toxic/Hostile Environment - During a NPCA staff meeting, a NPCA volunteer (male), spoke violently and threatened a woman intern. The only staff members to intervene during the staff meeting were female, junior level employees. No executive level or upper management employees stepped in to mitigate the violence. Afterwards, women employees raised concerns with the overall atmosphere and culture of NPCA due to the incident and leadership’s reaction to this incident. Leadership pushed back on addressing the issue, but eventually did, resulting in disengaging with the male volunteer. Later when asked, Glenn responded that he could not discuss details of it because it is a personnel issue and staff need to be careful when referring to the situation because “everyone has their privacy.” Glenn also said that legally he could not tell someone not to attend a meeting unless he’s proven a pattern of behavior that creates a hostile environment. In fact, there is no legal obligation and the person was a volunteer, not staff member. A staff member said that it is unfortunate that as an employee, she’s unable to know whether someone, particularly a volunteer, who spoke very harshly to women interns will be interacting at NPCA.
March 2021: Lack of Accountability - A female staff member submits Glenn’s 2020 CEO Review to the board. Among the comments included is “I have experienced bullying and stonewalling from a few staff members and have seen the same happen to other staff, especially women. We have raised concerns of safety a few times.” Another female staff member submitted critical comments about Glenn in his 2020 review. She was not invited to submit a CEO review in 2021 even though she still reported to him.
April 2021: Toxic/Hostile Environment - The leadership team showed lack of empathy and support to women in a staff meeting and in subsequent meetings when the USAToday article on sexual assault in the Peace Corps was released on April 22, 2021 despite several women at NPCA expressing how the USAToday article impacted them. To this day, leadership continues to avoid talking about sexual assault and sexism in the Peace Corps. Leadership did not share or discuss the subsequent USAToday articles; a staff member brought it to a staff meeting. Noticeably, while Glenn Blumhorst is quoted in most NPCA news articles, he has not publicly commented on sexual assault in Peace Corps through NPCA. NPCA's statements were from the Board or Steven Saum, Director of Strategic Communications.
April 2021/June 2021: Retaliation - After raising several concerns about concerning issues that women were experiencing at NPCA, two female staff members were both placed on "Team Member Coaching and Counseling" plans for "Not displaying respect, professionalism, and collaboration in the workplace." Additionally, after telling HR that she felt there was gaslighting happening to her, one of these women was directly told she could not use the term "gaslighting" or other language that implies "ill will or aggression toward others."
June 2021: Disparate treatment of female and male employees and community members - For over one year, Steven Saum, Director of Strategic Communications, did not directly speak to nor interact with female NPCA employees, preventing them from completing their jobs. The female staff raised these, and other, concerns about Steven that were not addressed.
July 2021: Lack of Accountability - On July 16, July 19, and July 20, 2021 Valerie told Dawn Cacciotti she was not comfortable meeting with Glenn. On July 22, 2021 Dawn told Valerie that she would be reporting to Anne Baker as her manager instead of Glenn. Valerie expressed that “it doesn’t address the problem.” However, Dawn said that it does address the problem because now Valerie doesn’t have to interact with Glenn. She did not acknowledge what would be done to address Glenn’s behavior that makes Valerie uncomfortable. Judyth Wier was hired as the Interim Director of Development on a short-term contract the beginning of September. Valerie never directly emailed, spoke, nor took meetings with Glenn; all communication went through the consultant Interim Director of Development. Later, NPCA told Valerie that it is “Valerie’s choice” that she’s not speaking to Glenn without acknowledging the unsafe reasoning for not wanting to speak with him.
August 2021: Toxic/Hostile Environment - On numerous occasions, NPCA actively refused to host or publicize the Sex- and Gender-Based Violence Town Hall events that survivors of sexual violence during service organized despite their efforts to work with NPCA. The Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington (RPCV/W) agreed to host and publicize the events. However, they were discouraged by NPCA leadership from moving forward with the events on the grounds that there were "legal concerns" with hosting the town halls. The events were successful with no legal issues.
September 2021: Lack of Accountability - NPCA canceled the contract of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) training consulting firm. NPCA went through a long process to procure a DE&I consulting firm, ASPIRE Group (https://www.aspiregroup.info/our-team) for DE&I training in 2021. NPCA had a drawn-out assessment period and one 3-hour introductory session with ASPIRE. Staff submitted concerns about gender-based harassment during the assessment period. Then suddenly NPCA canceled their contract in September 2021. The reason given was that ASPIRE couldn't deliver on the timeline NPCA was asking of them. However, there has been no attempt to procure another firm or move forward with the training plans. Meanwhile, Peace Corps staff participated in implicit bias training.
December 2021: Retaliation - Caitlin Nemeth would speak out in staff meetings and signed the complaint to the NPCA board. Caitlin's contract was not renewed at the end of the contract term and was given two weeks' notice for the change. The reason given was that the donor funds would be redirected by request of the donor. However, the other NPCA staff member funded by the same donor on the same project, who did not speak out in staff meetings, was hired full time.
November 2021: Retaliation - On November 10, 2021, Valerie Kurka was placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) by Interim Director of Development Judyth Weir through a process that does not align with NPCA's employee manual. Indicators Valerie had to meet included "zero errors" on communications including Gift Acknowledgement letters that she produces. In contrast, in a board meeting in early 2020 Glenn said Valerie was doing “a great job” and is "worth her weight in gold". Valerie received a monetary bonus and raise for her work after 2020 and a full annual raise for work in 2021. In February 2022, Valerie reached the end of her PIP and was fired.
