“We can’t trust their numbers,” one says about a report from Leidos to Congress last month

Advocates challenge Antarctic contractor’s claim of zero sexual assaults on its watch

“We can’t trust their numbers,” one says about a report from Leidos to Congress last month

Jennifer Sorensen was working as a food steward at McMurdo Station in Antarctica in December 2015 when a sexual relationship turned violent. Both she and her assailant were employed by subcontractors to Leidos, a Virginia-based company that provides logistical support for the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP), which an independent review concluded last summer suffers from a “pervasive” culture of sexual assaults, harassment, and stalking.

Sorensen, who is speaking publicly about her experience for the first time, was so traumatized that she waited almost 2 years to report the attack. After she did, she was told she had been harassed, not assaulted, and the only action the company could take was to make sure that her assailant wasn’t hired again.

In late 2019 another food steward was raped—and then fired after she reported it. Emails obtained by Science document that Leidos and the subcontractors knew about the incident, which eventually led the National Science Foundation (NSF), which manages the program, to commission last year’s report.

Notwithstanding those attacks—and others Science has learned about from survivors who declined to discuss their experiences—Leidos reported last month to Congress that it knows of no cases of sexual assault since it won the Antarctic Support Contract (ASC) in 2016. That’s impossible, say former USAP employees who have advocated for greater transparency and accountability in dealing with the problem.

“It’s clear we can’t trust their numbers,” says Julie Grundberg, whom Leidos fired as ASC area station manager after she tried to speak up for another USAP employee who had been sexually assaulted at McMurdo in late 2019.

Leidos came up with the data after a senior manager couldn’t quantify the extent of the problem at a recent congressional hearing on the report, which also found that USAP employees believe Leidos and its subcontractors haven’t taken sexual harassment and assaults seriously and have failed to protect the victims and punish the perpetrators.

“We get what we measure, so you should have those numbers,” Representative Mike Garcia (R-CA), scolded Kathleen Naeher, head of the civil division at Leidos, at the hearing, held in December 2022 by the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Without those data,” Garcia continued, “you’re not really adopting a zero-tolerance mentality” toward sexual harassment.”

Gaps in reporting

Collecting those numbers hasn’t been easy. Only about 60% of the people working in the USAP—a community that swells to 1200 in the austral summer—report to Leidos or one of its subcontractors. The remainder are scientists on an NSF grant, employees of other federal agencies, military personnel, and foreign nationals. Those multiple lines of authority on the frozen continent “create gaps that hinder current response and prevention efforts,” the report noted.

Legislators expect Leidos and NSF to figure out a way to close those gaps. “It’s clear … that the Antarctic program lacks sufficient reporting structures and law enforcement mechanisms,” says a spokesperson for the science committee when asked to comment on the new data. The latter is a reference to a preliminary report last month by NSF’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on current law enforcement policies that address sexual assaults and stalking. “We’ll be closely reviewing their work,” the spokesperson added.

In the meantime, the committee is digesting the data Leidos has provided. Between May 2017 and April 2022, Naeher wrote, Leidos received no reports of sexual assaults and five reports of sexual harassment. Between May and November 2022, she added, the number of reported harassments jumped to 14, with no assaults reported.

Leidos sees the recent spike in reports of harassment as a positive metric, explained Naeher, saying it “can be attributed to a heightened awareness of reporting options” as well as expanded training for bystanders and other policy changes. The rise, she added, “indicates an increase in trust in leadership/HR and the reporting process.”

Those numbers convey a different message to former USAP employees like Sorensen, Grundberg, and Elaine Hood, a former Leidos communications manager who resigned last year because of how the company has handled the issue. They see the data as an attempt by Leidos to play down or ignore reality.

In September 2017, Sorensen wrote to GHG Corporation, which provides IT support for the station, “I was in a relationship with [one of your employees] that came to an abrupt end when he raped me in his dorm room.” Her nearly identical emails to her employer—GSC—and to Leidos also contained a plea for help. “I’m not sure what will come of this letter,” she wrote, “but … I figured you may know how best to proceed.”

The assault occurred during Sorensen’s first stint on the ice. “We had never been told about any procedures in place for reporting sexual assaults, and I had no idea of my options,” she tells Science. So Sorensen tried to suppress the physical and psychological damage she had suffered through what sexual violence counselors later told her was traumatic amnesia. In her 2017 emails, Sorensen apologized for that time lag and said she finally decided to speak up for the sake of other victims, “real or hypothetical.”

GHG responded promptly. “We have concluded that you were a victim of sexual harassment … [from] an incident that resulted in feelings of humiliation and extreme discomfort for you,” GHG President Joseph Willhelm wrote back 4 days later. Leidos “had assisted in the investigation,” he noted.

But Sorensen says she was disheartened that her assault had been downgraded to harassment and by the rest of Willhelm’s response, in which he promises that the company would never again hire the assailant. “That is the only action I have the power to execute,” Willhelm wrote to Sorensen. “I hope that you can find some assistance to help you further heal.”

Leidos’s data to Congress also appear to treat the 2019 rape of another food steward as something less serious than sexual assault. That rape survivor, who received a substantial settlement after she filed a civil suit, can’t discuss the case because of a nondisclosure agreement. But in emails that Grundberg obtained from NSF through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with Science, Leidos officials acknowledge knowing about the incident.

“Executive leadership at [Leidos] HQ, the customer [NSF], and [the subcontractor that employed the rape survivor] are aware and engaged and have been since about 5 minutes after you brought [the incident] to [our] attention,” Michael Beck, then project director for the contract, wrote Grundberg in January 2020. “I believe all parties are working in earnest to ensure that it is investigated fairly and completely per processes of both [the subcontractor] and Leidos.”

The rape survivor had told several colleagues about what had happened to her, prompting other survivors of sexual assaults to begin sharing their stories with Grundberg and leading to an informal network of employees called Ice Allies that began pushing Leidos for greater transparency and accountability. But nothing came of those efforts, Grundberg says, and 6 months later she was fired for what Leidos told her was “an inability to meet job expectations.”

Unmet goals

Given the multiple jurisdictions, the science committee also asked NSF how many incidents of sexual misconduct it knew about. Karen Marrongelle, NSF’s chief operating officer, wrote that the agency received two reports of sexual assault and six reports of harassment or inappropriate behavior between October 2017 and September 2022. (NSF did not investigate any of those incidents, the agency later told Science. Instead, according to a spokesperson, six were investigated by contractors, one by the U.S. Department of Justice, and one by a non-U.S. entity.)

Marrongelle also gave the committee a long list of things NSF has done since last year’s report, including creating a new office to coordinate the agency’s response to last year’s outside report and hiring an on-ice advocate at McMurdo. “It is our overall goal to provide immediate support to survivors, provide swift assessment of a complaint or report, and ensure thorough follow-up until the situation is resolved,” Marrongelle wrote to legislators.

Grundberg and Hood applaud NSF for those steps. But more is needed, they say. “It’s barely scratching the surface,” Hood says. “People are still afraid to file a report.”

This story originally appeared on: Science News - Author:Jeffrey Mervis