On February 5 legal representation for Stacy Brown, former Chief of Police for The Evergreen State College sent a letter addressed to Aileen B. Miller, Assistant Attorney General and representative of The Evergreen State College (TESC) alleging that Stacy Brown resigned from The Evergreen State College because the College was a hostile work environment.
In the letter, Brown’s attorney Christopher John Coker alleges, “there was not only a pervasive hostility towards law enforcement, in general, at the college, but also towards her, specifically and that some of that hostility was based on her gender and, at times her race”. It goes on to say, “[Brown] was subjected to discriminatory actions and comments from College employees and College administration, as well as attacks on her character and gender by the student body that were either ignored, supported, or implicitly condoned by the College administration,” and, “that the College failed to reasonably respond to a flier being posted around Campus depicting Ms. Brown in a racially and sexually explicit manner.” Much of the letter describes hostility particular to Evergreen’s ideological atmosphere surrounding law enforcement, but the allegations focus in on the protected classes of gender and race to make its arguments. The letter finally alleges, “that the hostile environment left her with no choice but to resign from the College.”
Presumption of Brown’s success as a Chief of Police is paramount to the litigation, as it says, ”after riding through the ranks in Lewis County as a deputy, detective, sergeant, detective sergeant, and finally deputy chief, Chief Brown believed the position with TESC was an opportunity to gain experience as a chief and advance her career. Her career goal was to work as the chief for TESC with the hope of someday advancing to a chief position in a larger department”. The letter later says, “When she accepted the position with TESC, Chief Brown’s career was advancing and she seemed to be well on her way to bigger and better things.”
Near the end, under the header “Aftermaths and Damages” the letter goes in to details of the alleged losses it proposes: “While Chief Brown enjoys her [current] work environment with the City of Tumwater, after 27 years in law enforcement, Chief Brown is faced with the reality of being required to essentially start back from the beginning in terms of career progression. With the City of Tumwater, Chief Brown is the patrol officer with the least seniority. By accepting the City of Tumwater position, Chief Brown was forced to take a pay cut in excess of $15,000 per year. The damage to Chief Brown’s reputation as a potential Chief of Police is damaged beyond repair.”
The litigation alleges that two emails, including a picture of bacon sent from a student employee, and one from a faculty member stating that “the police were basically fascists and the events that occured at Chief Brown’s swearing in were to be expected”, were sent by two male staff and were directed at her specifically because of Ms. Brown’s gender. The Cooper Point Journal can confirm that in spite of the degendering language of the litigation, the student employee in question is not male, and in fact her State ID is labeled female.
Another allegation revolves around a flier that was present during part of the protests last year with an illustration the litigation says depicts Brown, “wearing suggestive clothing, a KKK type hood, and holding a geoduck that appears to be ejaculating,” as the letter to Miller explains.
The letter also contains allegations regarding The Flaming Eggplant restaurant and The Cooper Point Journal (CPJ), to which Brown alleges that anti-police sentiment, and clearly untrue “discriminatory and derogatory statements about her” were allowed to be posted and published by Tom Mercado, Former Director of Student Activities specifically because she was a female police chief.
The anti-police sentiment allegedly includes employees from The Flaming Eggplant oinking at the police and the CPJ publishing several opinion pieces regarding Brown’s interview with the paper and issues of policing in general. The Cooper Point Journal published several articles regarding policing during Brown’s tenure, but the only article mentioned in the letter was a student of color who was also the only student journalist mentioned by name.
The allegations against Mr. Mercado state, “When Chief Brown advised Mr. Mercado of her concerns about the restaurant employees’ actions and the posting of discriminatory and hostile flyers about her and the police around the student activities building Mr. Mercado appeared to become angry and defiantly informed Chief Brown it was ‘freedom of speech’.”
Another allegation regards a female faculty member of color who scheduled a meeting to discuss her claim that an officer was racist. The faculty member pointed out a racialized power dynamic exhibited when Ms. Brown showed up to the meeting in uniform and carrying a firearm, as the letter states, “When Chief Brown arrived at Ms. Harris’ office for the pre-scheduled meeting she was immediately confronted by Ms. Harris and told by Ms. Harris that she could not believe Chief Brown, a white woman, would show up at her office carrying a firearm.” According to the document, the faculty member informed Brown, “that she believed Chief Brown was wearing her uniform and firearm to intentionally prove she had more “privilege” than her and was trying to intimidate her”.
In regards to this incident the letter states, “Chief Brown was very concerned about Ms. Harris’ seemingly derogatory comments about her race and gender and wanted to bring it to the attention of Ms. Endress because she was worried about being labeled in such a manner,” and goes on to say that after being informed, Ms. Endress did not investigate and possibly discipline Ms. Harris for the interaction.
Numerous other allegations are present within the litigation including that President Bridges stated, “I bet you are looking for a new job, this has been a very hostile work environment for you.” The Cooper Point Journal will continue to cover the story as the possible lawsuit unfolds.
